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Does your garden contain medicinal plants and herbs?

by Tricia

I’ve always found it fascinating how most herbs and a number of plants have been used throughout history to cure what ails us.

I actually have a number of books about herbs and their medicinal uses. I should dig them out and write about some of the more commonly found herbs from time to time. As I said, I’ve always had an interest in this, just as when I find that plants that we’ve always thought of as being ornamental turn out to actually be edible too.

Well, until I begin writing some articles about herbs you might be interested in visiting a site that I found that’s called Natural Herbalism. This site has articles that discuss various herbs, their uses, chemistry, the history of herbs, how to grow them, how to prepare them, herbal recipes and herbs that have specific uses for men, women, children and even pets.

It’s quite an informative site.

Take for example the article about Bayberry. Most of us think of Bayberry as an ornamental shrub, but it actually has medicinal properties. Did you know that you can make a tea by boiling the bark and root and that when the tea is drank it has stimulant properties that are effective against diarrhea. The root bark also contains a natural antibiotic and can be used to treat skin wounds or even used in a mouthwash to freshen breath and fight gum disorders such as gingivitis.

Many of us grow celery in the garden, and if we don’t grow it we often buy it in the grocery store. Did you know that celery is a diuretic and that oils from the seeds were thought in the past to relive the pain of arthritis and rheumatism. Celery has also been used to treat anxiety disorders and insomnia.

If you are curious about the medicinal uses of some of the other plants that you might grow in your garden visit Natural Herbalism and look them up. I found the articles quite interesting.






Filed Under: Garden Tips, Health, Health and Fitness, Herbs, Hobbies and Crafts, Plant History, Recreation Tagged With: articles, garden, grow, herb, herbal, herbal treatments, herbal uses, Herbs, history of herbs, infusions, interested, medicinal herbs, oil, plant, plants, recipes, seeds, shrub, skin, tea, topical

The birds are pigs!

by Tricia

My husband filled our two bird feeders on Wednesday evening. Both were empty as of sunset Friday.

I wish I had a photo to show you.

Once the feeders were filled the birds filled our yard. They were in the Rose of Sharon tree and sitting atop the tall roses. They were on the interlocking stones that we made our raised flower beds with. They were everywhere!

One of the bird feeders is quite large. It’s about a foot and a half tall and five or six inches in diameter. It holds a lot of seeds. Two days … just two days and it’s empty!

The other bird feeder is also about a foot and a half tall but it’s only two inches in diameter. It suits smaller seeds, the more expensive seeds like neger seeds. It’s empty too.

These birds are going to eat us out of house and home!

Filed Under: Home and Lifestyle, Pets and Wildlife, Recreation Tagged With: Beds, bird, bird feeder, bird seed, birds, birds eating seeds, flock of birds, flower, flower bed, Friday, home, hot, House, large, photo, Rose of Sharon, roses, seed, seeds

Butterfly Milkweed

by Tricia

I noticed that my hybrid Butterfly Milkweed – Asclepias tuberosa – had started to form buds. I had noticed the developing buds about a week and a half ago as I took a walk in my garden checking on all the plants as I went.

Luckily I had my camera at hand and I was able to take a few nice photos of the developing buds:

Milkweed tuberosa buds

Butterfly weed is a herbaceous perennial that grows up to two feet in height. It dies back each winter and then re-sprouts in late spring from underground tubers.

Milkweed is slow to come up each spring. If you grow any form of milkweed you should always take care to mark the spot that it grows in each fall or at the very least try to remember where it was as it’s slow to make an appearance and you wouldn’t want to dig in the area and damage the plants roots.

Flower clusters of brilliant orange or red appear in midsummer. Once the blooms are spent attractive green pods develop. When the pods mature they open to release silky parachutes that drift away on autumn winds. This is how the butterfly weed propagates as the seeds of the butterfly weed are on these silky floating strands.

Each cluster has many flowers, several of these flowers will have an inner whorl of petals that are called the corolla and an outer whorl of sepals that is called the calyx. Butterfly Milkweed is a little different from other species of milkweed in that the sap is not milky nor are the leaves opposite.

Butterfly weed is a naturally occurring plant that grows east of the Rockies in North America. It’s preference is for well drained sandy soils.

If you’d like to grow these lovely flowers plant them in full sun to very light shade. Butterfly weed is hardy to USDA zones 4 – 10.

If you’d like to encourage butterflies to visit your garden this flower is a must as the caterpillars of Monarch butterflies feed only on milkweed foliage. Adult butterflies of many species enjoy sipping the nectar from the butterfly weeds blossoms.

I grow a few types of milkweed in my garden and every time I gaze out my kitchen window I see butterflies visiting many of my plants.

Filed Under: Blooming today, Garden Buzz, Perennials, Plant Profiles Tagged With: Asclepias tuberosa, bloom, blooms, buds, butterflies, butterfly, Butterfly weed, camera, caterpillars, flower, flowers, garden, green pod, leaves, milkweed, Monarch butterfly, my garden, North America, perennial, photo, plants, seeds, spring, summer bloom

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