Natural Herbal Beauty

The herb garden can be anything from a yard-square patch near the kitchen door to a formal and decorative garden 200 feet square. One great aspect that needs to be stressed is that a herb garden can be both fascinating and decorative as well as purely useful.

Secondly, it may be formal or informal in plan. The herb border outside Dunster Church in Somerset is a pleasing instance of an informal border, planted with a varied collection of scented plants, reminiscent of the way in which the herbs would have been grown in the old monastery gardens. (more…)

It is entirely appropriate that the scented plants and the herb garden should be considered together. Some plants, for instance lavender, have aromatic leaves and scented flowers. It is, however, more usual to find the two qualities separatecistus and southernwood have strongly aromatic leaves, but the flowers are not endowed with fragrance.

Generally speaking, the aromatic qualities are more subtle than those of fragrance. In some plants the air around is impregnated with the aroma, as with sweetbriars and pine trees; (more…)

It is entirely appropriate that the scented plants and the herb garden should be considered together. Some plants, for instance lavender, have aromatic leaves and scented flowers. It is, however, more usual to find the two qualities separatecistus and southernwood have strongly aromatic leaves, but the flowers are not endowed with fragrance.

Generally speaking, the aromatic qualities are more subtle than those of fragrance. In some plants the air around is impregnated with the aroma, as with sweetbriars and pine trees; (more…)

During the last centuries, therefore, the interest in curative herbs was upheld, though it had become more of a special science. In the garden, the cultivation of vegetables introduced from abroad, the spread of landscape gardening, and of fascinating plant discoveries from abroad, combined to take the main attention from the herb border. Many old favourites were grown, however, rosemary, lavender and southernwood having a lasting appeal; and the scented pelargoniums were popular in Victorian times.

The great compilation of this century has been Mrs Grieve’s A Modern Herbal in two volumes, edited by Mrs Leyel, and published in 1931. (more…)

The value of medicinal herbs was based to a considerable extent on the Doctrine of Signatures, which taught that plants carried on them evidence of the healing use of the plant or signs of the ailment for which it was a cure. William Coles, a contemporary of Culpeper, wrote Adam in Eden, and The Art of Simpling. He believed in the Doctrine of Signatures and says “Though Sin and Sathan have plunged mankinds into an Ocean of Infirmities Yet the mercy of God which is over all his Workes Maketh Grasse to grow upon the Mountaines and Herbs for the use of Men and hath given them particular signatures whereby a Man may read even in legible characters the Use of them.’ ‘Walnuts bear the whole Signature of the Head, the outwardmost green barke answerable to the thick skin whereunto the head is covered, and a salt made of it is singularly good for wounds in that part, as the Kernell is good for the braines which it resembles.’ (more…)