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A good feeling with herbal healing

You know herbal healing has gone mainstream when the packaging for plant-based remedies called "Flu Chaser" and "Sinu Clear" is as alluring as anything you'd see in Bloomingdales, and that's the case at the Apothecary Garden, on Germantown Avenue near the Chestnut Hill-Mount Airy border.

The location is apt because the small, chic herbalist's shop combines the killer-style aesthetic of the Chestnut Hill retail district (where even the bathroom-fixture stores are drop-dead gorgeous) with the earthier, woo-wooier vibe of the neighborhood to the south.

On the high-style end of the spectrum, you'll find tea pots and mugs from Abington ceramist Linda Johnson, whose modern Little Flower line is building a national following. You'll also find spare and gleaming displays of herbal syrups, teas and tinctures (herbs steeped in liquor or glycerin and made into a tonic for hay fever, insomnia, colds and other common ailments).

On the woo-woo side of things, there are workshops for Himalayan singing-bowl therapy, in which vibrations from the metal bowls are supposed to work like a tuning fork for your bodily fluids.

Store owner Maia Toll is an Irish-trained herbalist, and the plant-based remedies that she recommends for what ails people have been used for thousands of years as medicinal herbs. Some, like valerian for occasional insomnia, also have modern medicine's conditional stamp of approval.

An assortment of herbal cough drops made in England from old-timey candy molds - the honey-flavored drops have a little Victorian bee on them - appealed to both the believer and the skeptic in us. We recognize honey as an ingredient that doctors say really works to calm coughs. And regardless, they're yummy candies. "I eat them even when I don't have a cough or a cold. They're delicious," says store clerk Marlenah Barker. *

Apothecary Garden, 7721 Germantown Ave., Chestnut Hill, 215-247-2110. Hours are Monday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., and by appointment for herbal consultations.

- Becky Batcha