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The Medicine Chest in your Garden

Julie Foster, (pictured left) the professional aromatherapist and name behind the very successful Potions & Possibilities brand, explains that the essential oils that form the basis of aromatherapy treatments can often be found in your own garden.

Historically, families were much more dependent on the plants that they could grow themselves for medicinal, cosmetic and nutritional purposes, as well as for dyeing clothing and creating natural pesticides.

Many of these home grown remedies have fallen out of use and today all too often we depend on more damaging chemical based substitutes. The solutions developed generations ago have been later proved to be based on scientific fact and surprising number of the medicines that we see today are synthetic copies of plant material. For instance, Aspirin is a synthetic copy of willow bark, while the heart drug Digitalis is derived from foxglove. With fears about resistance to antibiotics and the long-term effects of some drugs, there is a revived interest in the use of plants for medicinal purposes.
 
The vegetable patch and herb garden

Onions have long been valued for their antiseptic properties. As far back as the middle ages, onions were hung in the home because the scent was believed to protect from infection, which prior to antibiotics would often kill whole families. In Victorian times, the juice was often used as a disinfectant, whilst slices of onion were applied to ulcers and wounds. They were also often laid into the ill-fitting shoes of the poor to heal the inevitable blisters and wounds that regularly occurred before the days of shoe fitting, steel toecaps and modern comfortable materials.

Rosemary (pictured left) has long been considered a sacred plant; Christians believed that the flowers were originally white but turned blue when the Virgin Mary hung her cloak on a bush on the journey to Bethlehem. Throughout the ages Rosemary has been carried to ward off evil spirits and protect against illness. Its medicinal properties were documented as early as 1370.

Semi-wild flowers

Dandelion is first known to have been used for medicinal purposes by the Arabs in the 11th Century. In this country it came to prominence in the monastic gardens of the 16th and 17th centuries and since then dandelion has been used for various purposes. Culpepper called dandelion "pee in the bed", referring to its powerful diuretic properties. Both the leaves and the roots were eaten raw or blanched as a general "tonic" and to relieve the hormonal or heart related symptoms of fluid retention. The leaves are especially high in Vitamins A B C D and E and were used to treat liver disease. The vitamin A content of dandelion leaves is higher even than that of carrots, so they were also eaten by individuals with failing eyesight. The root was also a gentle laxative, commonly used for children, while the flowers were boiled with honey to make cough mixture.

Exotic blooms

Evening primrose has many names, including "fever plant" and "King's cure-all". Evening primrose oil is extracted from the seeds of the plant Oenothera Biennis, which was used by the North American Indians for healing wounds. It was historically used to treat stress-related eczema, asthma and the "weakness and faintness" experienced by Victorian females. Evening primrose oil is the most valuable of the essential oils in medicinal terms and 5000 seeds are needed to produce enough oil for just one teaspoon. Evening primrose has historically been associated with a healthy complexion and for the prevention of "women's problems", an application which has been proven in recent years. The organic chemical constituents of evening primrose include essential fatty acids from the Omega 3 and 6 families. These are essential for the maintenance of healthy cell membranes and are also believed to help maintain a healthy hormonal balance with positive implications for hormonal problems and the skin.

Common garden plants

Lavender (pictured left) derives from the Roman "lavare" which means "to cleanse". Lavender was popular in the monastic medicinal gardens of the 13th and 14th centuries. In his popular herbal, published in 1597, John Gerard said that lavender flowers helped to cure all pains and "maladies of the head", as well as “lovesickness”. The Victorians lined their hats with lavender to ward off headaches, and in the First World War it was used as an antiseptic for wounds and as a drug to ease psychological pain and induce sleep.

Chamomile has been used for over 2000 years for treating nervous complaints. In the language of flowers, chamomile stands for "patience in adversity". It is often called the "plant's physician", because it seems to improve the health of the plants within its immediate vicinity.

© Reckless Gardener Magazine 2005 Mill Cottage New Media