Medicinal Herb Gardening
It’s easy and so satisfying to grow your own medicinal herbs!
A myriad of herbs can be planted together
An herb garden in high summer, full bloom is natural aromatherapy experience.
It is best to begin to think about your medicinal herb garden during the winter months, when you have time to plan.
Consider the area that you have to work with. Even if you live in the city, you may be able to plant a medicinal herb garden in pots or even on the top of the roof.
Medicinal herbs are fairly “user-friendly” so to speak. These herbs, so anxious and even almost seeming to be willing … and ABLE! … to assist us in our daily needs with regard to differing maladies, often grow in the most unusual places; gravelly soil, craggy woods and infertile, unused meadows. Consider the lowly Chamomile: it’s a gentle digestive aid, a calmative herb and a sleep assist. It will grow in amazingly odd places with almost no encouragement whatsoever. It is almost as if it is so anxious to give us aid that it’ll pop up wherever it’s needed. There are two basic species of chamomile, Roman and German. Both are tough varieties of plants; both are tough species of peoples! Once planted, they plan to stay. They willingly re-seed and propagate themselves, without too much assistance. Even here in New England, home of Mystical Rose Herbals, can be found a wild species of Chamomile — a cousin — called “Pineapple Weed“. It has much the same properties of the garden-variety, cultivated German and Roman Chamomile. (This is the weed that my grandmother used to collect for winter tummy woes and probably what Peter Rabbit’s mother made her Chamomile Tea from when he returned, after over-eating, from Farmer McGregor’s garden.) This “weed” is often found growing in between sidewalk cracks, unbidden, it waits for us to recognize its willingness and ability to calm our stomachs after over-indulging in food or drink or calming our nerves when for some reason we are unable to sleep at night.
Another easy, genuine and pleasant aromatic “starter herb” is Lemon Balm (Melissa officanlis). Once established, this lovely-scented herb is aromatherapy personified! Be careful where you plant it, as it is quite prolific and will take over any area that it is planted in. After it’s set down roots and established itself well, don’t be afraid to heartlessly dig up around the outside rim to keep it under control. Call your friends and offer them some roots; it’s a well-known calming herb and your friends will love you for it. It’s also the most effective thing that I’ve ever encountered for eradicating “Herpes Simplex” … better known as “Cold Sores“.