4/30/2025 10:41:18 AM
By Kathy Henderson 
After allowing the earth to rest for about five years, plans are underway for replanting the Native American Medicine Garden on the University of Minnesota’s St. Paul campus.
The land needed time to rest, and now it’s time to come back to life, said Jennifer Garbow (Ojibwe, Bois Forte), who last year became the first to hold the title of Tribal Engagement and Outreach Liaison for the U’s College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences, or CFANS.
In addition to the Medicine Garden, CFANS oversees the Bell Museum, the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum, 13 academic departments, and 10 research and outreach centers across Minnesota.
Garbow’s focus on the garden is part of her extensive job description, which states “in consultation with interested Tribal Nations and communities, oversee efforts to caretake and re-envision the Native American Medicine Garden.”
In her liaison role, Garbow reports directly to CFANS Dean Brian Buhr and is a member of his senior leadership team. The University and CFANS are committed to acknowledging its challenging past and are working to rebuild and strengthen relationships with Tribal Nations and Native people, according to a U website.
The initial logistics of planning and partnerships for the garden are a team effort of Garbow with Brandon Alkire (Standing Rock Sioux Nation), Minnesota Indian Affairs Council’s legislative director. Established in 1963, MIAC serves as a liaison between the tribes and the state of Minnesota.
There is bipartisan support for the garden, Alkire said.
However, the garden will be more than what meets the eye. It is about sacredness, respect, responsibilities and accountability.
“The possibilities are endless,” Garbow said. “We want to create opportunities for our urban relatives to connect, get their hands dirty. We can imagine opportunities for campus, Tribal communities and non-native public learning spaces.”
In this early phase—soil testing done, clearing still to come—Garbow and Alkire intend to hold a planting ceremony, optimistically in May. Farther down the road there will be some kind of welcoming back ceremony for those who left the garden during its resting period.
What eventually will be planted in the garden had not been determined at the Bugle’s press deadline. In past years, plants ranged from ceremonial sage and tobacco to common milkweed and sweetgrass.
The garden’s location is a bit of a challenge to find; no directional signs pointed to it on the U campus in early spring. Only a weathered garden sign and a small arbor structure mark the one-third acre plot. It sits next to the U’s agriculture research field area, southeast of the Cleveland and Larpenteur avenues intersection, fairly parallel across Cleveland from where the field area begins behind the Bell Museum.
The U’s Native American Medicine Garden was established in 2003 by Barbara Graham-Bettelyoun (Sicangu Lakota), director of what was then the U’s participation in the Woodlands Wisdom Nutrition Project Confederation. The project’s goal was to bring awareness to nutrition and health, with a focus on Native American health disparities. Originally, it was administered within the medical school. Graham-Bettelyoun left the U in 2004.
Over the years, the administration transitioned from the medical school to the U’s Office of Equity & Diversity and then to CFANS. The garden was tended from 2007 to 2020 under the stewardship of Master Gardener and Landscape Designer Cânté Sütá Francis Bettelyoun (Oglala Lakota), along with what’s been described as a network of native and nonnative U students, individuals, families and organizations.
If you’d like a time travel moment, the YouTube video, “Virtual Art Exhibit: Medicine Garden,” provides examples of what was planted in the garden before the land went to rest in 2020: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmgVQhSSFI8.
Kathy Henderson lives in St. Paul and is a regular freelance writer for the Bugle.
Photo: Brandon Alkire (Standing Rock Sioux Nation) and Jennifer Garbow (Ojibwe, Bois Forte) are providing leadership on the replanting and re-invigorating of the Native American Medicine Garden on the University of Minnesota’s St. Paul campus. Photo by Kathy Henderson.
