Trigger Planting 2.0 Garden

Planting Plan Sketch

As part of Trigger Planting 2.0, a permanent garden installation has been planted in front of the Milstein Center for Teaching and Learning. Developed in collaboration with students, grounds staff, faculty, and volunteers, the garden features a curated selection of medicinal plants also highlighted in the indoor exhibition. Each plant is accompanied by signage listing its botanical name, common names in multiple languages, and its medicinal and abortifacient properties. Integrated into the campus landscape and designed to grow beyond the exhibition’s end date, the garden serves as a living extension of the project—embedding histories of reproductive care into everyday space and inviting ongoing reflection on the relationship between ecology, bodily autonomy, and public knowledge.

Abrotificients, Emmenagogues, and Contraceptives

Plants and Herbs

All plants included here contain abortifacient, emmenagogic, and/or contraceptive properties as well as myriad other medicinal, spiritual, and horticultural uses. An abortifacient or emmenagogue herb is one that is used to induce miscarriage/abortion. Oftentimes these same herbs are used during labor as they help stimulate blood flow to the uterus.

Disclaimer and Intention:

By focusing on abortifacient, emmenagogic, and contraceptive plants, this project gestures to history, regeneration, cultivation, and community. These plants represent a history and practice of self-actualized bodily autonomy and stands in allyship with the herbal practitioners who use them. Abortion is an essential healthcare right, so too is the necessity of autonomy over one’s own body. Limiting, outlawing, and criminalizing abortion will not change these two fundamental truths. The abortifacient emmenagogic, and contraceptive properties referenced in this project are for artistic purposes only and are not intended for medical use.

List of plants, in order from left to right

Lemon Balm

Melissa officinalis

Habitat: Fragrant herbaceous perennial, prefers well-drained loamy soils, sun to dappled shade. Square stem (like everyone in the mint family), light pink to white flowers in mid to late summer.

Medicinal Properties: High in antioxidants, can lower risk of heart attaches and stroke, stress releaving, anti-cancer, aids diestion. Diaphoretic, calmative, antispasmodic, sedative, carminative, emmenagogue. A great partner herb for stress and anxiety and nervous stomach. It helps to calm the digestive track and feeling of nausea for those experiencing those symptoms due to stress.

USDA Zones: 4 - 9

Oregano

Origanum vulgare

Habitat: Perennial herb with a pungent aroma. Simple leaf shape with bright pink flowers blooming mid-summer into fall. Widely used as a culinary herb and is one of the key ingredients in the Palestinian spice blend za'atar.

Medicinal Properties: Oregano essential oil has powerful antibiotic properties, helping to fight bacteria, lower cholesterol, treat yeast infections, and improve digestion. It is antimicrobial, antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, emmenagogue, and abortifacient.

USDA Zones: 4-10

Angelica

Angelica archangelica

Wormwood

Artemisia absinthium

Habitat: Herbaceous perennial plant with fibrous roots. Leaves are greenish silvery-gray, slightly lighter on the underside. Very aromatic. Small, pale yellow flowers, blooming from early summer to late autumn. Easily cultivated in dry soils, prefers full sun and dry conditions. Used as an ingredient in absinthe and as a flavoring in other spirits and wines.

Medicinal Properties: Aids in liver function, antimicrobial, can help to expel parasites, used to treat malaria, antidepressant, abortifacient.

USDA Zones: 4 - 9

Yarrow

Achillea millefolium

Spanish: Milenrama

Korean: 애기풀 (Aegi pul)

Vietnamese: Cúc tây

Chinese (Mandarin): 薄荷草 (bò hé cǎo) or 千層草 (qiān céng cǎo)

German: Schafgarbe

Armenian: Շահաթուղիկ (Shahatughik)

Habitat: Aromatic perennial herb with showy flower heads composed of many tiny, tightly-packed flowers rising above clusters of ferny foliage. Species flowers are white, but cultivars produce blooms that are yellow, red, or pink. Native to temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere in Asia, Europe and North America, frequently found in the mildly disturbed soil of grasslands and open forests. Active growth occurs in the spring.

Medicinal Properties: Anti-inflammatory, antiseptic, diuretic, increases sweating, astringent, expectorant, aids in reducing inflimation and swelling. It has been used to stop bleeding of wounds and cuts, as a poultice for burns and open sores, to cure fevers and colds, and to alleviate toothaches. Stimulates uterine contractions, emmenagogue, abortifacient.

USDA Zones: 3 - 9

Hyssop

Hyssopus officinalis

Queen Anne’s Lace / Wild Carrot

Daucus carota

Urdu: جنگلی گاجر

Hindi: जंगली गाजर (jangalee gaajar)

Farsi: هویج وحشی

Sp: Zanahoria silvestre

Fr: Carotte sauvage

Habitat: Biannual, commonly found growing wild in fields, along roadsides, sidewalks, and disturbed sites. Distributed widely throughout North America. Feather-like leaves with hairy stems, large umbel lacey white flowers with one distinctive dark purple bloom in each flower top. Thick carrot-like taproot with a distinctive carrot smell. As the seeds ripen, the inflorescence curls inward to form a bird's nest shape, turning dark brown.

Medicinal Properties: Antioxidant, anticancer, fever reducer, pain releaver, antibacterial, antifungal. Helps to expel gas and remove kidney stones; volatile oils soothe muscle cramping. Has fertility and anti-fertility agents. The dried seeds work as an implantation inhibitor and have widespread use as a daily birth control supplement.

USDA Zones: 4a - 11b