Mr. McDonnell spends up to an hour and a half preparing a home for an open house, cutting fresh pine branches or picking fresh lavender and mint from his herb garden.

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Lightner and a full-time forager provide Atera with wintergreen, nettles, other plants, and fungi, mainly from upstate New York, and one wall of its dining room has been transformed into a vertical herb garden, overflowing with aromatics like camphor, lavender, and mint.

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The seasonal flavours include lavender, rose and fresh mint alongside the Italian favourites of pistachio and stracciatella (the Italian version of chocolate chip).

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"Putting in a herb garden would be one of the easiest things because they love lavender, chives, rosemary and mint and you've got the advantage that herb gardens don't take a lot of looking after and you can use them for food, " he added.

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