What to do with St John’s Wort?

St John’ Wort is my ultimate summer herb. The date when my first yellow starflower opens tells me how the season fares. This year is was 21^st June, Midsummer’s Day, so although the winter was long and spring cold and late, the plants are progressing as normal. When the last seed forms in late September I know summer is over and world is turning once more.

St John’s wort was once of the first herbs I grew. Everyone talked and wrote about it, embodying it with an air of mystery. It was deemed to be very powerful, copying the pharmaceutical drugs which tackled mild to moderate depression. There was also talk of it being used to treat burns arising from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. How could a herb have such widespread action?

I knew the active part of the plant was the flower and the tiny, perforated leaves which gave it its name “perforatum”. If you couldn’t see light coming through the tiny holes, then the plant would not be particularly active (much to the dismay of those with ornamental hypericums growing in their gardens!).

My first products were the flowers infused in sunflower oil on my kitchen windowsill. Christopher Hedley taught me to use a light oil since the plant was delicate, but I know others prefer olive oil if they are looking for something which penetrates the skin more easily and has medicinal effects of its own. I leave it alone all summer, adding to the jars every day or so and topping them up as needed until I have enough oil for the coming year.

One year I put a lid on the jar, thinking to deter insects but was taught a salutary lesson when I discovered mould growing on the top. Fresh plant material contains water and if you don’t allow it to evaporate you are likely to grow something you don’t want. Now, if I were to bother with a cover, I’d fashion something out of paper or cotton.

The development of St John’s Wort oil is an amazing spectacle. After only two days the oil begins to change colour and by the end of one or two weeks, the familiar crimson oil emerges. It must have sunlight to effect the change. If you stick your jar of oil in a dark cupboard for several weeks, it will remain yellow. (Ask me how I know!)

The oil can be used in so many different ways.

• As a sunscreen
• For general burn healing
• With honey and calendula as a poultice for burns
• For massage involving any kind of nerve pain
• In a salve with calendula and chickweed for hot, infected eczema
• With meadowsweet for anti-inflammatory pain such as arthritis
• With agrimony for pain involving constriction
• As a cream with marshmallow, calendula and aloe vera to prevent diabetic foot problems

The second product I made was a tincture but macerating the flowers in vodka for three weeks in a dark place. The red colouration begins to leach out after several hours.

The tincture had me in a quandary. I don’t like to give herbs to anyone with a serious mental health problem, especially if they are under the care of professionals and may be taking other psychotropic drugs. St John’s Wort has a tendency to exacerbate the side effects of any other medication, which is not something to be recommended.

St John’s Wort is also one of the few drugs to have been extensively “researched”, although the trials are rarely with the whole plant, only with those aspects which have been extracted and standardised. Hence the long list of contra-indications and warnings which the press are so pleased to report. If you do want to educate yourself about these reports, there are lots of references in medical journals.

Like the SSRI drugs, St John’s Wort doesn’t act immediately. You need to build up a concentration in the body before you start to notice changes. Henriette Kress described it, “You won’t notice any difference when you take it but the people around you will notice you are different.”

It was Henriette who gave me the confidence to start adding St John’s Wort to my bereavement tonics. All the herbs are nerviness and help to support the adrenal gland during times of stress. I use SJW with lemon balm, vervain and nettles in the early stages of bereavement and may continue to add it to the mix or leave it out in favour of oats and/or motherwort, depending on the person. I also give people skullcap or rose elixir in separate bottles to take as and when the screaming habdabs descend.

David Winston also reported success with a mixture of SJW and lemon balm for seasonal affective disorder (SAD). This could be easily combined using tinctures but I have also made a syrup with extra lemons which proved far too delicious to be a medicine!

After several years of making oils and tinctures, I began to dry the herb for teas. A former apprentice reported great success in removing the pain of diabetic foot neuropathy in Asian elders by administering the tea as a footbath. This could also be used with any hand problems.   

My next experiment was with honey. SJW flowers in honey produces a pink honey with the characteristic SJW smell. You could use this in any drink as an added medicine to a herbal infusion. I’m now waiting for the evening primrose and bergamot to flower to make a “burns honey” together with apothecary’s rose petals. Having just treated a nasty burn on my leg, I want to be sure I’ve got a specific honey available just in case.

Every year I give away dozens of self seeded SJW plants. I believe every herb lover needs an SJW patch in their garden. I know I would be lost without mine.

I'll finish with a meditation I undertook recently with St John's Wort. This is what he said.

I am the sun and stars
I am strong
I travel along unseen pathways
I hide my scent
You will only know it if you work with me.
The more you work with me the less you will understand me
I comfort the vulnerable
Do not think to offer me on my own
I am not here to work your miracles
You will not notice how I change you until the change is past
Offer me humbly to your elders
On your knees let them bathe their feet in my waters
I will take away their pain, soothe the burning
I am strong

Trust me

2012 Herbal Ally Roundup: Rose

Rose has been with me all through the year, from the sun-kissed days of winter to the rain and gales of summer and beyond. She has brought great happiness, not just to me but to everyone who has stooped to smell her perfume or breathed in the scent of her many products before tasting. Everyone she has touched has stopped, smiled and complimented her. She has been a wonderful ally.

I have two major rose varieties in my gardens. The apothecary’s rose, rosa gallica and the David Austin old English rose, WilliamShakespeare. While the former has been used medicinally since the dawn of time, to use the latter is probably a surprise to most rose growers who don’t automatically gather their roses for culinary, cosmetic and medicinal purposes. 

Roses have always been a harvested garden crop. In medieval times, three major roses would have been grown – apothecary’s rose, also known as the Red Rose of Lancaster, the white rose (rosa alba semi-plena -the white rose of York) and the damask rose (rosa damascena).  Their ruling planets were Jupiter (red rose), the moon (white rose) and Venus (damask rose).

Rose petals were used historically to treat diarrhoea, bronchial infections, coughs, colds, chest complaints, nervous tension and lethargy. The distilled water was prescribed for eye inflammations, to refresh the spirits and to strengthen the heart. Rose oil was applied to chapped skins and Gerard said that roses would “staunch bleeding in any part of the body”.

The scent of rose has been used to perfume everywhere from churches (using scented oil in incense burners before the altar) to rooms (in pot pourris) to individual bodies as part of a floral water, a lotion, cream or massage oil. The petals can also be eaten in salads, crystallised or made into syrups, jams, jellies or vinegars. Rose water (a distilled essence of rose) has been used to flavour confectionary (notably Turkish delight), jellies, sauces and both sweet and savoury dishes.

The Catholic rosary was originally named because the beads were made from rose petals. It is a long and somewhat tedious process according to Henriette Kress, who told me that she wouldn’t consider making another set after her original one, unless she really wanted to make one for a friend. Her method can be found here. She recommends taking out your rose beads when you need love, gentleness, courage or some prickliness.

Henriette believes rose petals to be calming and mood-lifting, helping with anger and frustration and giving you courage to defend your opinions and boundaries so that you can like yourself and others more. She recommends rose petals for menstrual irritability either in the form of a tea or a bath. The tea can also be used for menstrual cramps or irregular menses. This comes from rose’s decongestant action in the female reproductive system.  Rose has also been used to treat impotence in men and can ease heart palpitations.

Avicenna was the first person to make rose water in the 10^th century. He used rose jelly to cure anyone who spat blood (usually a sign of TB or other serious illnesses).  Anne MacIntyre gives a account of the many different myths about roses in her wonderful book, The Complete Floral Healer. She very kindly stepped in at the last minute to provide a herb walk during my festival in September and had everyone spellbound as she talked about the plants she encountered in the Sanctuary.

My favourite part of her talk was about the rose. I had not heard before that according to Eastern traditions, when a soul knocked at the door of the next world and all material things had to be left behind, only the red rose was allowed to accompany that soul over the threshold because it was considered to be part of the spiritual realms.

Annie fell in love with the scent of the William Shakespeare rose, telling us she often prescribed her patients to smell a rose three times a day to help improve their overall health.  This is such a simple and effective idea I have started using it with other heavily scented plants such as rosemary in an attempt to support others in helping themselves.

Annie also writes about the energetic properties of rose. She says, “The red rose increases confidence in those feeling insecure about their sexuality and who suffer from feelings of shame or timidity about their bodies. It help you to open up to love and bring your desires into action.

“The white rose is quietly inspiring and strengthening, renewing energy and joy in oyur life. The white rosebud can be given to infants and children to help them grow up, keeping a sense of heaven on earth.

“The wild rose is the remedy of independence. It is traditionally said to mean ‘pleasure and pain’ as it brings pleasure to the eyes and heart when found blooming in the wild, but pain from its sharp prickles if you try to pluck it. Wild rose warms the heart and softens the emotions, engendering an easy-going feeling to enhance sensuality.”

I really understand what she means about the wild rose. In my part of the world, this is the dog rose (rosa canina), although I have come across both the briar rose (rosa rubiginosa) and rosa rugosa growing wild in Northumberland; briar rose around a former children’s TB sanatorium near Morpeth and rosa rugosa on the coal-filled cliffs and sand dunes opposite St Mary’s lighthouse, Whitley Bay.

Gathering dog rose petals means time to be by myself, to study how the flower buds open, how the petals fall or are blown away by strong breezes and how the buds grow in clusters of up to eight or more. This is revealed more fully when bright red hips form in autumn, when I found some bushes by Olton canal only producing single berries, whereas those in my Sanctuary and surrounding fields had groups of between four and eight.

Rosehips also reveal the different species of bush. Apothecary’s rosehips are so small as to be almost non-existant, leaving wild rosehips to be the one of choice for collecting, but even those are different shapes and sizes. The largest I have ever found were in the Friary field last winter and I’m looking forward to seeing if they grow to such size again. Cotswold rosehips seem the usual shape and size, but the canalside ones are small and round, leading me to wonder if they were rosehips at all if I hadn’t been sure of their identification through their leaves.

I throw rosehips into most syrups and cordials and quite a few other concoctions because of their high vitamin C content. Looking at some of their other properties – strengthens the lungs in fighting infections, wards against colds and coughs,  helps to fight infection in the digestive tract and helps re-establish normal bacterial population of the intestine when it has been disrupted by antibiotics or faulty diet – they seem the ideal support food or drink for winter.

My daughter has been suffering from recurring infections in her wisdom tooth which the dentist has suggested might come from a lack of fruit and vegetables in her diet, so I gave her one of the rosehip syrups to take home with her and take a spoonful every day.

My stocks of dried rosehips have all been used up so this autumn I have been gathering large basketfuls to replenish my empty larder jars and make some rosehip syrup for the first time. The bags of hips are still drying in my hot cupboard and although the syrup was made, it seemed to produce very little juice from a large number of hips, so I may try again later in the winter when the hips are softer and sweeter.

I have made many potions from rose this year as well as drying several bags of petals despite appalling weather conditions when harvesting. Tinctures, vinegars, tonics, syrups and elixirs have all graced my shelves along with a newcomer - the rose double infused oil.  I was also really pleased to be able to put up another batch of Kiva Rose Hardin’s, “Burns Honey” as my bergomot flowered again this year after restocking the plant last spring.

With the rose oil I made a simple rose cream with rose tincture and beeswax. The inspiration came from Leslie Postin’s blog and she, in turn, used Lucinda Warner’s recipe from her blog. We made it as part of last Saturday’s “Oils and Salves” workshop. I’d never had any success with creams before so I was somewhat anxious about the outcome, especially as I could not obtain either a rose hydrosol or any glycerine and when I went to look for my last piece of cocoa butter in the larder, it hid! 

Simple Rose Cream

8 fl ozs Apothecary’s rose petal double infused oil

1 fl oz Aloe vera gel scraped from the inside of three large leaves

5 fl ozs Apothecary’s rose petal tincture

1oz grated beeswax from the beekeeper who lives in the next road.

We measured out the oil and heated it in the top of a double boiler with the grated beeswax, stirring gently with a wooden spoon until it melted. This liquid was then poured into a large plastic bowl which was suspended inside another bowl of cold water and the oil was again stirred until it was almost cool. I used a stick blender to emulsify the cooling salve as the tincture and aloe vera gel were slowly poured into the mixture. The blending continued until the cream was thoroughly emulsified. It looked pale and fluffy and was very slightly pink in colour.

The scent was very subtle but I was very impressed with the result. If you wanted a stronger smelling cream you could add drops of rose essential oil or a fragrance which pleases you. We put the cream into some recycled jars my sister had gifted me the previous weekend.

What really delighted me was the fact that I had made and grown all the ingredients myself except the beeswax, which I had collected on foot.

The other great success this year has been rose elixir. When my daughter shut her finger in a door earlier this year and called for “Mother’s Emergency Service”, I dosed her with rose elixir while I bandaged her damaged digit. She was soon calm and sufficiently restored to go off to give her piano lesson followed by a shift in the hotel where she then worked.

At the beginning of September I was asked to provide a medicinal herb demonstration in the kitchen garden at Calke Abbey. Many of the volunteers on duty that day came to see me and waxed so poetical about the stress relieving effects of the rose elixir that the organiser came and sat down with me for a good twenty minutes.  She asked if she could take the elixir away with her as it made her feel so much better!

Rose has been a wonderful ally this year. She is a perfect companion teaching me close observation whilst providing a calm and unhurried world in which to inhabit. Although I shall choose another ally in the coming months, I know rose will always be at my side.

Fennel update : a feast of red

Some spare hours today saw me decanting the most recent tinctures and vinegars. Ribwort plantain came out it's usual almost black colour, with a warm taste to the slight bitterness. The small amount of yarrow tincture was a clear brown/orange, making me anxious to harvest more once it all starts flowering. I had to protect the few random stalks in the field behind the gate from Chris'enthusiastic strimming last Sunday, but he then went on to leave the ones in my parents garden as he recognised them as a plant I wanted, rather than a weed!

The real surprises were the fennel tincture and the chive vinegar, both of which came out a beautiful red. The fennel tincture had a rose glow to it, while the vinegar was almost scarlet. I didn't think the tincture would go red as it looked a dark green when I first poured the vodka in. It was such a surprise! I hope the liqueur will also have a red tinge, but I shall have to wait another month before that is ready to decant.

The chive vinegar smelled strongly of pickled onions (which is not surprising!), but has almost a sweet flavour to the vinegar. I can see we're going to have fun at the next Vinegar workshop!

At the last one, we made fire cider vinegar and I was thinking of that when I saw some horseradish leaves sticking up above a patch of weeds surrounding some courgette and squash plants. The courguettes are flowering and have set one fruit, which already has had a bite taken out of it. The butternut squash plants don't seem to have grown at all since I planted them, which does not bode well.

I thought I would clear the weeds from them (red dock, chickweed and various others) when I saw some rustling and a huge frog made its way into the safety of the compost bins which are overgrown with potatoes and bindweed. I did apologise for taking away his shelter, but he has lots of other places to hide. I've seen a couple of tiny froglets in the past month, but it's really good to see the adults back again.

Celebrating the solstice with St John’s wort

Although both dates for the summer solstice (21^st June) and midsummer (24^th June) are passed, it feels appropriate to mark them with a posting about St John’s wort. This herb has a special meaning for me. When I first started growing SJW, the flowers always opened a week after the solstice, but two years ago they moved a week forward and the first bloom opened on 21^st June. I was sure this year they were going to come beforehand, but they didn't, they waited!

I have been growing SJW for at least twelve years. It was one of the first specialist herbs I bought to grow in my garden. I couldn’t believe anything so delicate could provide such strong and helpful medicine, but it does!

Each spring I cut down the dead stalks of the plant and watch with bated breath as the tiny fronds emerge from the soil. This year it was March when I took the first photo. By the beginning of May the stalks were about four inches high and now they wave delicately around from a height of about two feet.

The tiny flowers are perfect stars – so perfect and bright it is almost impossible to get a picture in focus! Each year I make a sun infused oil and tincture. If there is profusion, or I find a bonus harvest elsewhere as I did last year at Birmingham International Railway station car park, then I might make a SAD syrup and dry some for ritual use.

SJW is thought to be a cleansing herb which repels negativity. It can be used in the bath for purification. It can also be used in rites of purification and exorcism.

Most people know SJW as a nervine, helpful in mild to moderate depression. They forget or are unaware of its other properties as an anti-viral, healer of burns and general external “heal all”. I won’t go into its constituents as that is something for others to comment on. I’m just interested in its uses.

I’m fortunate in that I don’t suffer with depression. There are times when I’m sad or emotionally upset, but I tend to turn to other nerviness – lemon balm, skullcap and vervain – before using SJW tincture for myself. I don’t think I’ve ever tried SJW tea – maybe I should add fresh SJW tea to my list of “new things to try” this year and see how it makes me feel!

Henriette recommends SJW for the pain and depression of grief, when everyone needs extra comfort and support through difficult times.

My dearest love of SJW is the oil. It is perhaps the greatest wonder of the herbal world to cover yellow star flowers in yellow sunflower oil, place it in a sunny window and watch as the oil begins to darken and finally turns a deep and glorious red. It has a very distinct smell entirely its own. There is no need for other perfume when you make the salve.

I use the oil in virtually every salve I make. I use it alone to deal with the itching and ache of venous degeneration in my ankles or to spread on burns after the heat has been taken out, with marshmallow as a diabetic foot salve, with calendula and marshmallow as a general winter salve, with calendula and chickweed for infected eczema, with elderflower to moisturise my face, with calendula, marshmallow and lovage in my “ladies’ lubrication salve” and with rosemary to make a massage oil for sciatica or arthritic joint pain.

I’ve also made a sunburn soother by adding SJW, calendula and aloe vera gel from the inside of freshly cut leaves to an aqueous cream base. I took it on holiday to Cornwall in our caravan fridge one year and gave it to a neighbour on the campsite who was badly burned on her back, arms and shoulders. After one application left overnight, the burn was soothed.

To make a salve, use 1oz of grated beeswax to every 8oz of infused oil. Heat gently in a double boiler saucepan until the wax has melted, then pour into clean pots. Label and date. Store in a cool dark place and the salve should last unopened for at least two years.

Here is the recipe for the SAD (Seasonal Affected Disorder) Syrup based on David Winston’s teaching using lemon balm with SJW for SAD. The recipe for a syrup comes from Non Shaw and Christopher Hedley's book, "Herbal Remedies"

1 l (2 pints) water (remember these are European pints (20 fluid oz) not US pints)
40 g (1 1/2 oz) dried herb or 100g (4oz) fresh chopped herb
450 g (1 lb) sugar
Put herb in water, bring to a boil, let simmer 20-30 minutes, strain. Clean out pan, pour liquid back into it, let sit on minimum heat until you only have 2 dl (7fl.oz.) left Add sugar, simmer until sugar has dissolved, pour into jars, label.

For SAD syrup I use equal quantities of dried St John's wort and lemon balm which I ground up in a coffee grinder if the herbs are dry, otherwise I bruise or shred the fresh herbs. I use aerial parts of both plants. Normally I only use the flowers of SJW to make oil and tincture, but I often make the syrup when the plants have gone to seed, so I use seed heads, flowers and some of the stalk.

Remember lemon balm only has a shelf life of 6months when dry, so if you buy some from a supplier, ask when it was picked. You should also pick the leaves before they flower, but if most of my plants have flowered when I make syrup, I try to pick as many secondary shoots as I can (shoots which grow up from stems cut earlier in the year).

Before the herbs simmer in the water, I add the grated rind of a lemon and when the syrup is finished, I add the juice of a lemon so it isn’t too sickly. I add lemon or orange juice to a lot of my syrups and use them more as hot cordials than taking 1 tsp at a time.

The dosage for SAD syrup would be around 1tsp three times a day. Don't use this syrup if you are already taking SSRI drugs for depression or if you've had a bad reaction to SJW in the past. Some people who take medication for migraine conditions find it can bring on a migraine.

The difficulty with this syrup is that it tastes so good, it could be quickly used up, so take care and don't take too much at once! As with all medicines, make sure children can't go and help themselves or you will suddenly find the bottle is empty!