HEALING GARDENS

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Fill your life with beauty, fragrance, and time-tested remedies for common ailments.

Since the dawn of history, humans and animals have sought healing from plants. Although many of today's most popular curatives are compounded in laboratories, there are still vast numbers of commercial remedies whose major medicinal ingredients are derived from green herbs, trees, and shrubs. But you needn't rely on store-bought products for botanically based medicine: Many of the most common and effective healing plants can be grown in your own backyard, in gardens as lovely as they are useful.

SELECTING YOUR CURATIVES

There are hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of plants with medicinal value. While some of these are too tender for North American climates and others grow so rampantly that they're undesirable in a garden setting, there are still many good candidates from which to choose. Most public libraries and bookstores offer a number of excellent herbals that can help you select the plants most suitable for your needs and your region (a list of recommended titles accompanies this article). Further assistance can be obtained from local nurseries and from catalogs published by mail-order herb suppliers. [EDITOR'S NOTE: A directory of two dozen such outlets appeared in MOTHER NO. 85, page 95.] When ordering or buying herbs, always be sure to refer to plants by their Latin as well as their common names, because popular labels can vary from one area to another.

Although you may want to cultivate only those herbs that relieve simple ailments and complaints, a good medicinal garden often contains some species that are planted strictly for their beauty or their historical interest. Foxglove and male fern, bloodroot and rue, for example, are all handsome plants that are just too powerful for anyone but a highly trained physician, pharmacologist, or herbalist to use safely as internal remedies.

THE ESSENTIALS

Most herbal medications are easy to prepare. The majority involve making an infusion, or tea, by flouring boiling water over leaves, stems, and/or flowers and allowing them to steep for a while. (One ounce or one-half ounce of herb to a pint of water is the usual proportion, with a steeping time of ten minutes or so.) Decoctions are made to extract the volatile principles from hard or woody parts such as bark or roots. The process requires boiling the pieces in water for three or four minutes, then allowing them to steep for an additional two to ten minutes (depending on the hardness of the materials and the strength desired).

Cold extracts are like teas, but require double the amount of herb, which is steeped in cold water for some 10 to 12 hours. A tincture is produced by steeping a dried, powdered herb in a one-to-one solution of alcohol and water for about two weeks. The bottle is shaken daily, and at the end of the period the herb is strained away and the liquid poured into a clean container for storage.

Poultices are made by crushing or bruising the medicinal parts of a plant, heating the resulting pulp, and then applying it directly to the affected area. If the plant is an irritant, such as mustard, the pulp is sandwiched between two layers of cloth. Fomentations are similar to poultices but milder in effect. To make these, a cloth is saturated with hot herb tea, wrung out, and then applied (as hot as can be tolerated) to the afflicted spot.

The essential oil of an herb can be obtained by any of four methods. [1] Steam distillation requires such apparatus as a still, condenser, and receiver. [2] In extraction the oils are dissolved out of the plant with alcohol or other volatile solvents and then distilled until a pure oil is obtained. [3] Enfleurage involves spreading flowers or aromatic leaves between trays of unheated, purified fat, which absorbs the oils. The resulting pomade is then treated with an alcohol solvent to remove the scented oil. [4] During maceration the leaves or other plant parts are left in warm fat for several days, and the oils are later washed out with alcohol.

Water will also remove the oils if it's poured into a crock filled with the aromatic parts of the herb (leaves, say, or petals) and left for a week or so in a spot where the sun strikes it. Attar of roses, which can be made from the petals of several varieties of old-fashioned rose, is obtained in this manner (although it takes an enormous quantity of petals). The resulting oil has an antiseptic strength many times greater than that of carbolic acid.

One way to preserve an herbal medicine meant for external use is to brew a strong tea, strain out the plant material, and then mix the liquid with an equal part of glycerin. The glycerin acts as a preservative and feels soothing to the skin.

MATERIA MEDICA

The following herbs are shown in two diagrams on page 125. One garden contains plants that will thrive along a shady wall, and the other is designed for a sunny, open area. Most of the plants listed are useful for one or more complaints, such as colds, upset stomach, headache, insomnia, nervousness, cuts, bruises, scrapes, chapped or allergy-irritated skin, and acne. Plants marked with an asterisk are potentially dangerous and should be used only by trained and expert herbalists (remember, too, that any substance, if misapplied or overused, can be harmful!). And some physicians doubt the medicinal value of any herbs, despite centuries of use.

FOR A SHADY GARDEN

Angelica ( Angelica archangelica ): Used for bronchitis and chest complaints, angelica is said to relieve the pain of gout and rheumatism, and can be used as an eyewash and skin refresher. A 3/8-teaspoon dose of the powdered root helps guard against infection during a fast.

*Bloodroot ( Sanguinaria canadensis ): A powerful stimulant, expectorant, and emetic, bloodroot can be safely applied ex ternally as a powder to skin eruptions and ulcers, nose polyps, and slow-healing sores.

Catnip ( Nepeta cataria ): Catnip tea is a pleasant household remedy for nervousness, upset stomach, chronic bronchitis, colic, spasms, flatulence, or diarrhea.

*Columbine ( Aquilegia vulgaris ): The fresh roots mashed in olive oil relieve rheumatism; the mashed and moistened seeds repel head lice; and a lotion made from the leaves soothes mouth and throat sores.

*Comfrey ( Symphytum officinale ): An excellent "drawing" poultice for wounds, infections, bruises, insect bites, and pulled tendons, comfrey is also used as a tea to relieve asthma, rheumatism, ulcers, bleeding gums, and throat inflammations, although it's currently under investigation as a possible carcinogen. Its common name, "Knitbone", is no doubt derived from the fact that its roots and leaves contain allantoin, a substance used to promote healing. Comfrey is considered a major healing herb.

Costmary ( Chrysanthemum balsamita ): This herb can be used to treat colic and upset stomach. The sweetly mint-scented leaves make a healing ointment for sores and scrapes when boiled and simmered for 10-15 minutes with 1/2 cup of olive oil, a tablespoon of turpentine, and a little beeswax, and then strained and poured into widemouthed jars and cooled.

*Foxglove ( Digitalis purpurea ): The leaves of this beautiful garden flower yield digitalis, a cardiac stimulant and tonic. Incidentally, handling the plant gives some people a rash and headache.

Heartsease ( Viola tricolor ): This botanical is used as a blood-cleaning tonic and to relieve chest and lung inflammation and skin eruptions. The powdered plant may be applied to wounds to promote healing.

Lady's Mantle ( Alchemilla vulgaris ): An infusion of the plant—4 teaspoons of dried herb steeped in 1 cup of water for 10 minutes—will stimulate the appetite, relieve diarrhea, and stem internal bleeding (it acts as a coagulant). Either the infusion or a poultice is good to apply to wounds.

*Male Fern ( Dryopteris filix-mas ): This herb is most famous for expelling tapeworms, but it's powerful and dangerous to take internally. One pound of the rootstock boiled in water can be added to a footbath to relieve varicose veins, however, so its appearance in the garden needn't be strictly ornamental.

Parsley ( Petroselinium crispum ): Used for combating halitosis and (in the days of the ancient Greeks) drunkenness, parsley can help in cases of dropsy, conjunctivitis, coughs, and bruises ... but it's best known as a powerhouse of nutrition.

*Pennyroyal ( Mentha pulegium ):  Most everyone knows the plants helps repel fleas.

Primrose ( Primula vulgaris ): To treat headaches, insomnia, nervousness, or general weakness, make a tea of the flowering plant. A decoction of the rootstock makes a good expectorant, helpful in cases of lung congestion, coughs, and bronchitis.

Self-Heal ( Prunella vulgaris ): An infusion of the fresh herb in May, when it's most potent, makes a strengthening tonic and a gargle that relieves inflammation of the tongue, mouth, and throat. The bruised plant makes a styptic salve to stanch cuts.

Solomon's Seal ( Polygonatum multiflorum ): The roots make a poultice for bruises, inflammations, and wounds. A wash made from an infusion of the whole plant was at one time used for skin blemishes and the ravages of poison ivy.

Sweet Cicely ( Myrrhis odorata ): The roots can be eaten fresh for coughs, weak stomachs, and flatulence, while an infusion in brandy or water is reputed to be a valuable tonic and gentle stimulant. Aromatic in all its parts, the herb can be used much like anise.

Sweet Violet ( Viola odorata ): The leaves can be used as a blood cleanser. An infusion eases nervousness, insomnia, headaches, respiratory problems, and the pains of throat cancer (claims have even been made that it effected a cure).

Sweet Woodruff ( Galium odoratum ): Woodruff is a gentle stimulant and blood tonic, with leaves that are mildly anesthetic. A tea helps insomnia and stomach pain.

Wild Ginger ( Asarumcanadense ): An infu sion of the roots can relieve colic, flatulence, and upset stomach, and a strong decoction of the rootstock was used by the women of one Amerindian tribe as a contraceptive. Wild ginger can substitute for the Asiatic variety in recipes.