Healing with Country: Medicinal Plants and Uncle Ken’s Wisdom
- Uncle Ken
- Jan 14
- 2 min read
Uncle Ken Jones revives and re-centres ancient Boandik knowledge, knowledge grounded in Country, season, and story. His tours don't just share plants; they awaken understanding of how these species relate to healing, spirituality, and land care. As a Boandik Elder, Ken leads walks that teach guests how to respectfully identify, handle, and appreciate the power of native medicinal plants

For Uncle Ken, teaching about medicine is more than pointing out a leaf or root; it's about passing down thousands of years of ecological memory, tied to identity and survival.
Across the windswept coastlines and dense tea-tree scrubs of the Limestone Coast, Uncle Ken teaches groups about traditional bush medicine: plants that soothe skin, reduce fever, treat pain, and calm the spirit. These medicinal insights, passed down from his ancestors, are now shared with school groups, families, health professionals and bushwalkers alike.
Participants learn to gently crush and smell leaves of plants like eucalyptus, tea-tree, and native mint. They hear stories of how Boandik people used oils, bark, sap and smoke not only for healing bodies, but for maintaining spiritual and social harmony.
As described in the Wattle Range Bush Repair Handbook, Uncle Ken encourages participants to engage their senses through a practice he calls “slow time.” It's an immersive process that involves walking through Country with eyes, ears, and heart open. “Smell the forest,” he says, “feel the salt breeze. Listen to the sheoaks speak.”
This approach is not only therapeutic, it’s transformational. The experience of Country itself becomes medicine.


By combining bush knowledge with meditation and storytelling, Ken helps people of all ages reconnect with land and understand why care for Country is care for self.
A Living Pharmacy
Bush medicine includes everything from the oil-rich leaves of the coastal tea tree, used as antiseptic, to the muntrie berries, which provide antioxidants and support immunity. Along the coast, seaweed and saltbush also offer nourishment and health benefits. Uncle Ken shows how plants like these were prepared and used ground, brewed, smoked, or soaked and teaches the ethics of only taking what is needed, with deep respect.
Participants come away with more than herbal tips they leave with a new awareness of how to live with Country, not just on it.
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