The plants in your yard have a story to tell. The Garden Hotline’s Rosemarie Cullinane is listening.

If you’ve ever called into the Garden Hotline, there’s a chance certified Master Gardener Rosemarie Cullinane picked up the phone.

Like all the experienced, knowledgeable staff at the Garden Hotline, Rosemarie dispenses free expert advice to anyone looking for safe, natural, and effective solutions for gardening and yard care. But she also brings a unique perspective to her work, offering a deeper cultural understanding of the plants in our yards and our homes.

In college, Rosemarie’s interests in horticulture, ecology, and art history led her to a discipline called ethnobotany, which she describes as the study of the relationship between people and plants. Rosemarie would inspect artwork across time periods and geographic locations to glean insights into how different cultures used the plants growing in their respective environments.

“For example, I'll look at a Renaissance painting, and I'll see a lot of plant depictions in it. And in those plant depictions, there's a lot of information. It tells me what was growing in that part of the world at the time, and the relationship that people had with those plants,” Rosemarie says. “How are they cultivating those plants? What methods are they using? The artwork is like a document of knowledge about their environment.”

Looking at plants through an ethnobotany lens might change the way you see your yard or garden. For example, there are some Pacific Northwest plants whose cultural value can be overlooked, such as fruit-bearing plants like salmonberry, huckleberry, and Oregon grape. For centuries, Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast have cultivated these plants for dietary and medicinal purposes.

Even common weeds can have complex backstories. For instance, Rosemarie notes that dandelions historically have been regarded as much more than just a backyard belligerent.

“Dandelions were brought over by European immigrants, particularly Italians, and they used that as a food source,” Rosemarie says. “It also had a lot of medicinal value. It was used to detoxify the liver, kidneys, and lungs.”

If you’re not ready to embrace the weeds in your yard as a culinary option, that’s OK. But before you resort to a chemical quick fix like pesticides, herbicides, and “weed and feed” products, Rosemarie advises gardeners to consider more natural solutions for weed control.

“There's that adage that you don't treat the plant, you treat the environment in which it's growing,” Rosemarie says. “A lot of weeds either stabilize the soil or add nutrients to it, or both. For example, if you've got buttercup growing in your lawn or along your driveway, chances are you've got water pooling up there. Or if you have vetch, you may have a nitrogen problem. So, if you don't want those weeds coming back, we tell our callers what they need to do with the environment, giving them those cultural methods of getting rid of the weeds and offering more sustainable, long-term solutions.”

Culturally and ecologically, there’s probably a lot more going on in your garden, yard, or houseplant collection than you realize. Equipped with that deeper knowledge, Garden Hotline experts like Rosemarie can help your favorite plants grow to their full potential with natural methods that keep our environment safe and healthy.

Got a question for the Garden Hotline? Get in touch Monday through Saturday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., at 206-633-0224 or via email. You can also find more gardening tips and updates on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and X (formerly known as Twitter).

The Garden Hotline also provides classes, workshops, and in-person support at community events throughout King County. See when the Garden Hotline is coming to your neighborhood by checking out the Hazardous Waste Management Program’s events calendar.

Read more: Laura Matter runs the Garden Hotline. Here’s what she wants every King County gardener to know.