What to do with a cough?

Coughs are very close to my heart. I live with a man who suffers with a long term cough after every virus. If he’s overtired, his throat muscles can be irritated by something in his food and coughing can ensue. I could lose a lot of sleep from his coughing fits if I didn’t do something to help!

Two of our three children had whooping cough where the effects lasted for twelve months. We got very good at rushing upstairs with a bowl the minute we heard the first cough! I've worked alongside people with asthma and have dealt with children to defer asthma attacks. My eldest son had a childhood friend with cystic fibrosis. I worked as patient representative in a regional review of lung cancer services for three years and learned many things about the importance of early diagnosis.

Coughs are a normal response to irritation or congestion. The approved medical wisdom is that most coughs are harmless and should heal themselves within three weeks. Three weeks is quite a long time to be without sleep or exhausted because of the cough. Herbs can help.

Before you decide whether or not to do anything there are some questions which need answering first.

• When did the cough start? 
• Have you suffered with a virus recently? Influenza? Whooping cough?
• What does the cough sound like? Is it in the throat? Is it dry and non-productive? Is there a "harrumph" kind of sound like asthma sufferers have? Does it start high up and deepen so that the person ends up either retching or actually vomiting but without the characteristic whoop of whooping cough?
• Is the cough triggered by eating or by lying down?
• Does the cough happen after experiencing heart burn?
• Does the cough bring up any phlegm? (i.e. a productive cough) What colour is it?
• Do you feel breathless after coughing?
• Do you bring up any blood?

Sometimes it’s a good thing to get a medical diagnosis and further tests.

• If the cough produces yellow or green phlegm see your doctor as there is probably an infection which may be deep in your lungs e.g. bronchitis or pneumonia.
• If the cough has been going on for more than three weeks or is getting worse, see your doctor.
• If you are breathless after coughing or have trouble breathing
• If the cough has been going on for three months and you've seen your doctor insist on a chest x-ray.
• If the cough is caused by heartburn, see your doctor.
• If you are coughing up blood, see your doctor.
• If you are asthmatic but are coughing all the time, get your medication checked. You may need your prescription changing or to change the way you take it.

Coughs can actually be a good thing. They expel particulars which reach your windpipe. They get rid of the excess mucous which has been produced by your body in response to a virus.

If a cough is productive and deep you may want to do something to help it. Elecampane root infused in honey can really help to get deep stuff up and out. The roots can be left in the honey and chewed. Nasty thick stuff which is infected also responds well to mullein leaf given as a tea but filter before drinking to remove any hairs.

A standard cough mixture can be made from a combination of equal parts of hyssop, white horehound and marshmallow leaf or root. This is a very old recipe and will both relax and soothe tissue. If you have a really inflamed/sore chest from lots of coughing, add plantain which will soothe inflamed tissue and rehydrate it.

General Cough Syrup Recipe

(from Non Shaw and Christopher Hedley's Herbal Remedies)

1 l (2 pints) water

40 g (1 1/2 oz) dried herb or 100 g  (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 (7 fl.oz) left Add sugar, simmer until sugar has dissolved, pour into jars, label. (This takes time. 1 fluid ounce evaporates about every hour.)

Judith’s cough syrup

1 handful each of dried horehound, marshmallow, sage and thyme

½ handful dried hyssop

Fresh orange peel diced.

1” root ginger grated.

2 pints water

Place everything in a saucepan, cover with water, bring to the boil and simmer with the lid on for 20-30 minutes. Strain and measure the liquid (1.5 UK pints). After cleaning the saucepan, return the liquid and add 1lb 8 ozs sugar. Heat slowly, stirring with a wooden spoon until all the sugar has dissolved. Bring syrup to the boil and pour into sterilised bottles, seal, label and date.

Cough syrups for children can be made from violet flowers or onions or thyme (don't give to under 2s).

Violet flower Syrup

Fill a clean glass jar with violet flowers, cover with boiling water and leave overnight with the lid screwed on. The next day, strain and measure the infused liquid. Don’t worry if it looks and smells strange. For every 7fl ozs of liquid add 5 ozs of sugar. Add the juice of at least half a lemon. The liquid will turn the most delightful shade of pink! Put all the ingredients into a pan and bring to the boil and simmer for a couple of minutes. Pour the resulting syrup into a sterilized bottle or jar, seal, label and date. Store in the fridge and discard if it starts going moldy. The suggested dosage for a child’s cough or slight constipation is 1-2tsps given at bedtime. If you are making this for a child under two years old and usually make your syrups with honey, use sugar this time.

If someone, either a child or an adult is exhausted from coughing and can’t sleep, try using an onion poultice. This method is taken from Kiva Rose Hardin's excellent article on Onions.

Onion Poultice

An onion poultice made from sautéing a chopped onion in oil until transparent, then thickening the mixture with flour. Spread the resulting paste on muslin or a clean piece of old cotton sheet and cover to retain the heat. Lay the poultice on the front or back of the chest with a hot water bottle next to it to keep it warm. Cover with a towel and leave on the skin for 15-20 minutes. Remove and apply a good chest rub.

Coughs in the throat, especially dry coughs respond well to sage and thyme. This can be made into a tea or an elixir

Post viral tea

Infuse 1tsp dry sage with 1 tsp dried thyme with 1inch grated root ginger in a lidded container with just boiled water for ten minutes then strain and pour onto the juice of half a lemon and honey to taste.

Cough Elixir

I make my elixir with fresh sage and thyme (enough to fill a 2lb glass jar) plus 2-3 sprigs of white horehound fresh or dried. Pour over 1lb of honey. Stir to remove any air bubbles then fill the jar to the brim with brandy, stirring well. Leave for 4-6 weeks shaking when you can. Cherry bark and hyssop both relax constricted tissue so are good for dry coughs and could be added to any cough mixture or elixir.

Onion syrup is another simple recipe which is suitable for children. This is KivaRose Hardin’s recipe

Simple Onion Syrup

1 Cup roughly chopped fresh onion

Small handful of fresh or dried Sage or Thyme or Monarda (or equal amount of fresh chopped White Fir, Abies concolor, needles). (Optional)

Juice of half a lemon (Optional)

1 tsp freshly grated Ginger root (Optional)

Enough honey to cover herbs

Place the onion and other herbs in a jar, cover with honey, stir to remove air bubbles and cover. Let it sit overnight. The honey will very effectively suck all the juice out of the onion.  Use by the teaspoonful beginning the next morning. Some people like to eat the onion bits with the honey and some people prefer to strain the solids out. It’s up to you.

Steaming
Coughs caused by post nasal drip can be helped by steaming. Pour boiling water into a bowl with eucalyptus leaves or essential oil (a few drops only) or sage or rosemary or pine needles. Lean over the bowl, trapping the steam in by placing a towel over the head and stay like this until the water is no longer giving off steam. Be very careful not to get burned! For greatest effectiveness, this must be done four times a day for ten minutes for at least 7 days straight.

Sore Throats

Sore throats caused by coughing can be really helped by sipping cider vinegar and honey in hot water (2tps of each in a mugful of water). Infused sage vinegar is really nice and you could add it to rosehip honey or elecampane honey for improved effect.

In our household, coughs happen every year and often last for several months. They can be loud and debilitating for the entire family, not just the sufferer. It's a good idea to make your infused honeys, vinegars and elixirs well before winter sets in and to have a store of dried herbs in the cupboard so they can be reached quickly. Now is the time to discover what you have in the larder and make new remedies.

Farewell to the old!

Blog posts are strange things. I know many bloggers are capable, productive people. They plan their posts, programme the widgits to deliver posts at regular intervals and carry on with their life. It doesn't work like that for me - or hasn't done so in the past. I think about things, really want to share discoveries and then life happens and nothing gets posted for ages.

For several weeks I've been wanting to tie up things with my herbal ally for 2011 - sweet violet but it hasn't happened, so I'm going to give you a run down of some of the things I've been up to.

Back in October, my aim for the remaining three months of 2011 was to catch up with any tasks I'd omitted from Kristine Brown's Herbal Ally challenges. I know I only meditated with the plant once rather than on a regular basis, but things went rather pear-shaped. I did make some salve with the beautifully dark green double infused oil just before Christmas and aim to use it for breast massage on a regular basis next year (New Year resolution No 1!)

When autumn arrived I fully intended to dig up a violet plant and consider its roots, but when I went down to my violet patch at the bottom of my garden (I don't have fairies who live there, just a pile of stones and shells guarded by a hedgehog and a mouse!) I discovered an amazing show of new violet flowers. How could I dig up a plant when they were putting on so much new growth!

Instead, I picked the flowers the day before the December workshop and poured boiling water over them to begin the process of making a violet syrup. I'd left the flowers in a glass jug for an hour or so before I infused them and the smell was positively divine! You can read about the magic of syrup making on Jackie's blog. The syrup was much more pink than the one I'd made in the spring which shows how more potent the fresh violet flowers were despite growing at the wrong time of year!

I've learned so much from this plant, I'm really pleased I chose her for my ally during 2011.

Herbal Ally 2012
Next year's ally has also been chosen during one of my recent. sleepless nights. Although I've worked with her a great deal already, I'm going to walk with all the different kinds of rose who gift me with their friendship and medicine. I spent an hour on Wednesday clearing a secret path to the new dogrose in the field around the corner from my house. I have three others to learn from at the farm along with the apothecary's rose and some US rosa rugosa seeds I hope to plant in the spring.

Violet : Theory and Practice

Despite the association between violets and spring, it is not a single season plant. Although the purple flowers disappear in April, the leaves continue to grow throughout the year and are best gathered for oil making or for drying in the summer and autumn when the leaves grow to their largest size.

Until this year when I decided to work more closely with the plant, I have used violets mainly for a double infused oil to offer added moisture to any salve I make. Yesterday I needed a new batch of moisturising and cell-strengthening salve for after my shower, so I mixed together 4 fl.oz. each of horse chestnut and calendula oils and added the last of my 2009 fresh violet leaf oil to bring the volume up to 10floz. To this I added 1 oz. of beeswax and heated it gently until the wax was fully dissolved.

Then I poured it into three containers and waited for it to cool so I could take pictures to show the dramatic change in colour. The salve is softer because I added two more ounces than my usual ratio, but it still holds together and is much easier to rub on than pure oil.

Today I made a new batch of double infused fresh violet leaf oil to replenish my stocks. The size of the leaves this time of year never ceases to amaze me – they are truly four times the size of the April leaves. They grow in tiers, the largest leaves hiding the substantial volume of green canopy below. The underneath leaves are smaller, but will soon grow to replace the ones I picked. The undergrowth in this part of the garden is so dense, I was fully expecting a grown frog to jump out at me, as happened the last time I picked here, but nothing happened!

What did surprise me was the depth of colour from the double infused oil. I’m sure the oil I used yesterday looked only green as opposed to dark green/almost black hue of the one made today.

The cooked leaves went very soggy after two hours, unlike some plant matter which looks as if it has been deep fried and crispy! Once I squashed the leaves together to remove any remaining oil from them, they turned into a small, compact, green, somewhat-slimy lump. I shall leave it overnight to separate the oil and aqueous layer as much as possible and then pour it into clean jars which will be stored with my other oils in the larder.

Violets are a wonderful teaching aid. Anyone who visits my gardens from January to April is offered a leaf to chew, a new experience to bring delight and wonder. What I have not done yet is to offer the same opportunity over the summer with heartsease leaves and see what happens!

Earlier on in the year, I spent a great deal of time reading in various herb books about violets. If you only have access to one book, the most comprehensive description of violet can be found in Anne Macintyre’s ‘Complete Herbal Tutor’. I was surprised she managed to include more details than either David Hoffman or Matthew Wood.

Wood says violets have a long history of use in European medicine especially the blue varieties. He says the leaves and flowers together are used. He says they have a sweet, slightly mucilaginous, slightly salty taste and cool impression. Violets contain flavonoids, mucilage, salicylates, tannins, essential oils, an alkaloid, saponins and minerals (especially calcium and magnesium). The root and seeds contain a substance like emetine, which causes vomiting, hence only the leaves and flowers are used in herbalism (unless of course you need an emetic!).

Violet is suited to cases where the mucosa is dry, when expectoration needs to be increased. It has an affinity to the lymphatic system and is indicated when there is lymphatic stagnation and swollen glands often in the throat and around the ears, in association with dry skin and constipation. As a moistening agent it acts on the kidneys, bladder and chronic arthritic deposits and skin conditions such as eczema.

Violet is described as an “alterative” or “blood purifier”, a perfect addition to spring salads or mineral-rich hot, long infusions. Add violets to red clover, plantain and nettles if you are looking to maximise the mineral content of your tea or combine violets with hawthorn and oatstraw for a more soothing and nourishing infusion.

From times long past violet has been used to soothe hot, dry coughs such as whooping cough, congestion and sore throats. If you are looking for a soothing juice made from the weeds in your garden, try a combination of plantain, chickweed, violet and mallow/marshmallow leaves. Pick the leaves, wash them if necessary then liquidise with some cold water. Leave the blended liquid for a short while before blending again then strain and drink.

It is important to use cold water if you want to extract the most mucilage from a plant. It is the mucilage which coats and soothes the dry throat and chest. It can also help with irritated bowels or be sponged on sunburn.

Violet is widely used in cancer. Wood says it is one of the few remedies with proven track record in cancer involving the breasts, lymphatics and lungs. Also in skin cancer.

The tissue states which call for violet are atrophy and stagnation . The specific indications for using the plant can be shown as follows.

Constitution, complexion, characteristic symptoms- children with swollen glands, dry skin and constipation
Mind, senses, nerves, emotions, personality – shy “shrinking violet”, shy, flabby children with moist skin and palms, recommended for grief and heartbreak and to improve memory and helps moderate anger
Head- severe headaches, eases headache arising from lack of sleep, inflammation of the eyes, infections in the mouth
Digestion –constipation
Kidneys and bladder – gravel, urinary tract infection
Female – breast lumps, benign and malignant
Extremities – arthritis of the wrists
Skin – skin dry, sore, raw (external), eczema
Other – cancer of the lymphatics, breasts, lungs, skin (poultice of fresh leaf and flower is best), epilepsy & nervous disorders.

No matter how much you study and practice with violet, there is always more to learn and experience.

A story for violets

Kristine Brown's eleventh challenge in her Herbal ally series is to write a story to your ally. I've cheated, including a brief mention of my ally in a short story. You can find it here

I promise to write a more significant story later.

Violet meditation

Sitting quietly beside a plant or flower and asking it, humbly, to share its wisdom is not an easy task. It could be thought the plant may not wish to share anything with a creature who has just picked a significant proportion of itself and has already eaten both a leaf and a flower.

These acts were done mindfully. I would never have dreamed in a million years that these vibrant spring plants with their delicate scent would now be a significant part of my foraged spring salads, nor that I could be considering the garden violet patch as a cherished food source. Such is the power of making a plant your ally!

Sketching the violet flower from different angles forced me to notice many new aspects of colour and proportion. Eating both flower and leaf made me very aware this was a powerful plant which left a lasting impression on my taste buds, mouth and me. Eating joined me with the plant.

I was sitting on the bench underneath the kitchen window looking out onto the garden. On my left, two large hawthorn trees were now in leaf. On my right, forsythia twined a yellow love spray around the flowering cherry. Golden daffodils swayed gently in the afternoon breeze. Sun shone. The only sounds were robins answering boundary calls occasionally interrupted by the harsh caws of pristine rooks from the tallest branches of a neighbouring fir.

I held the vision of the violet flower in my mind and closed my eyes.

As a healer, it is relatively easy to slip into a grounded state which allows energy to flow where it is needed. I could feel energetic spirals on my hands, knowing there were friends who would benefit from this healing force, but what of the violet?

Although I could see the violet flower, it seemed to be the white centre which was important. As if to emphasise the point, a white space became a fluttering butterfly flapping its wings. Then I saw a bunch of violet flowers growing together, upright. This was on the right hand side of my field of inner vision. The bunch then moved to the centre of my view, fanning out into a circle like a hollow vase.

As I studied this brilliant white central core, I could see the curled petals of a chrysanthemum, or was it a tightly furled water lily? No matter, it was the colour which was important. White, the colour from which all other colours come, symbolising purity, innocence, peace, or deep spirituality. A colour to wash away and cleanse whatever was needful.

Violet flooded my vision and I felt my third eye open, pulsing in the middle of my forehead. The brow chakra - a place of intuition, of deep understanding, of being true to yourself.

I could feel the sun warm on my face. Red came, then white again followed by green. Within the green I could see detailed drawings of violet plants, complex, tall and high in the centre of my inner sight. The green transformed to blue and then to turquoise, such a gentle colour. Purple returned followed again by white. I felt the spirals of energy disappear from both my palms and knew the meditation was over.

What had I learned? It was a simple sentence which came to me during the meditation.

“It is violet which takes us to all that we are.”

Thank you.

Drawing Violets – another medium

Part of Kristine’s herbal ally art challenge was to try different mediums. Yesterday I sketched plants and coloured them using crayons. Today I gathered a bunch of violet flowers and leaves for another jar of infused vinegar, along with nettle tops, sorrel, jack-in-the-hedge, marjoram and a little rosemary for nettle and stilton soup.

The hour I was in the garden coincided with the sun emerging through the deep cloud cover, so I sat and sketched a violet flower, both full facing and a side view. It was remarkable how much detail could be seen in the delicate flower. The pale green sepals could only be seen from the side view and if you only viewed the flower from this angle (which is the most common view when looking at the plant) you could easily miss, what to me is the most amazing part of the whole flower.

The flower consists of five petals, leading down to the orange stigma in the centre. Each petal is similar but different. They are have a deep, violet pigment for two third of the length which then becomes white as it nears the stigma. It is only when you turn the flower upside down that you notice the largest petal has purple streaks of colour leading down to the stigma in the middle of the flower.

Recent technological advances in infra-red photography have shown how most flowers have “landing lights/lines” to show the bees where to reach the pollen, but it looks as if the violet flower has its own flight path painted onto this one petal!

Once back indoors, I took the plunge to try painting my sketches with watercolours. The crayons I’d been using said they could be used for water colours, but I didn’t understand how until discussing it with my friend last night. He explained what I should do, so today I experimented.

It was surprisingly easy to paint over the shading with a damp brush and gave the sketches a softer, more even look.

I am incredibly grateful to the kind words of praise and encouragement given me by commentators here on my blog and on Facebook. It is so exciting to be dabbling in a world I never thought I could enter.

Violets: capturing images

All my life I have known my artistic skills are very limited. I cannot draw or cut straight lines and colouring inside lines was not achievable. I can’t remember what age I was when I knew I could not draw. I remember illustrating my written work in the junior class without any qualms (my primary school only had two classes – infants taught by my mother and juniors taught by Miss Bryan, the headmistress) and I took great delight in designing dresses for the princess of my dreams, even though they all looked the same shape.

I suspect my mother mentioned that my sister’s drawings were more accomplished at some stage, but the real embarrassment came on the transfer to secondary school. Art lessons were not a subject I excelled at. Yet I loved the lino-cut pottery and fabric screen painting we did in the second year. I was even quite pleased with my shading effects when drawing twigs in the third year, but everyone knew art wasn’t a valued subject.

Only people who couldn’t learn Latin and therefore would not be able to go on to learn German or Greek would continue with art lessons to ‘O’ or ‘A’ levels. Those of us destined for academically successful careers were not really supposed to touch art or music with a barge pole. I mean, how could you earn a living from such subjects, and as for sewing or cookery (home economics), those really were for people who couldn’t manage anything else!

So, forty years later, Kristine sets a challenge to draw our herbal ally. Kristine is incredibly skilled in art and design. How on earth am I supposed to do something like that? I quietly forgot about the task, but it remained in the back of my mind.
I know the violets will soon be over. I know I need to do as much with the flowers as I possibly can. Over the past week of glorious weather I have intended, each day, to make more vinegar or a honey or maybe even a flower essence, but work, exhaustion, having little voice and a recurring tooth ache meant I achieved nothing. (You can see I am really good at finding excuses for inactivity!)

Today, it is very cold, cloudy with a light, damp wind. I woke early with my mind determined to think about seed planting instead of sleep. I dug one third of the vegetable bed and planted some peas. We used prunings from the apple tree as pea sticks. I hung the washing out on the line and felt it grow wetter. We sat outside and drank coffee complaining about the cold while the radio cricket commentator complained about heat in Sri Lanka.

Chris disappeared indoors to watch the last of the cricket. I followed. In the middle of removing my jacket, I decided I really would go and sit by the violet bed with my notebook and a pencil and see what happened.

I’d drawn one leaf when Chris called me up to take a phone call. I didn’t use the excuse to go inside, but returned to my chair, pencil and paper. I drew two plants, each with the delicate violet flower hiding amongst vibrant green leaves.

What did I learn? The leaves have a serrated instead of a smooth edge. The leaf has two lobes where it joins the stem. The stem is a circular tube, three or four times as thick as the flower stalk. In the centre of each plant new leaves appear as green tufts. The markings on each leaf are delicate lines, almost like the lines on a hand. They stand out and yet are ethereal.

The violet flower is such a beautiful colour. She hangs her head modestly, reaching only half the height of the leaves. They stand tall all around her, protecting her. The plants felt like family groupings; each one growing one or two flowers, but several leaves with many more to come.

I didn’t hold out much hope for my sketches, but I was quite pleased with the two results. With my increasing long sightedness, they looked better to my naked eye than to the close up camera picture.

I still can’t colour in without crossing the line. I could blame it on a failure to keep a steady hand, but my hand has never been careful or meticulous. The colours are not exactly true, but they are what I had available.

All in all, I’m quite pleased with the results. They will never be great art. I think you can tell they are violets. I hope you can. Maybe I will be courageous with other plants and draw again because the only person I need to please is myself.

Violets – revisiting childhood memories

Violets have always been part of my life. The challenge of choosing a herbal ally has offered me the opportunity to get to know this plant in a very different way. Until this month, I felt the challenge was running away from me as I’d done nothing practical, but this past weekend at the farm has enabled me to notice new aspects and take a trip down memory lane.

Saturday was the first Springfield Sanctuary workshop. Five of my apprentices gathered together to plant oats, identify young herbs and begin the task of readying the main herb bed for the coming year. Violet flowers were blooming beneath the crabapple tree, so everyone was given a violet leaf to chew and reflect upon.

The expressions on their faces told a story all of their own. Everyone experienced the leaf in a different way. Comments included:-
This is different!
I could happily eat this in a salad
It really cleans your palate!
It tastes nutty
It tastes smoky

I used the remainder of my tiny harvest to put up a small jar of vinegar, using the amazing apple cider vinegar gifted by Nik at a previous Mercian Herb Group. There were so few violets and leaves; I hoped to increase the amount of herb the following day.

Sunday was again a gloriously sunny day with a cold wind. After spending the morning cooking cakes, puddings and a roast dinner with my mother, while Chris and my father battled with the sixty year old water pump, I escaped for an hour to walk to one of my childhood spring playgrounds about a third of a mile away.

On the ordinance survey map, it is called “Town Quarry” reflecting the original use as a stone quarry for the nearby villages and large estate, Copse Hill. Once the stone was removed, it became a place for the disposal of unwanted items – everything from glass bottles and rusty buckets to motorbikes, fridges, prams and once an old Bentley!

For several years, before I went away to school at the age of eleven, my younger sister and I would ride our bikes down to the tip to explore and generally see what we could find. It wasn’t the discarded items which intrigued us, but the spring flowers. We had no primroses or violets in our garden and these grew wild in the tip. I was an avid reader and The Secret Garden was one of my favourite books. I wanted to create my own secret garden, so we carefully dug and transplanted snowdrops, violets and primroses to two different locations at the base of trees.

In the 1980s, Ian Fleming’s nephew bought the Copse Hill estate, in a final attempt to save his marriage. The costs of all the renovations made him almost bankrupt and in trying to set light to both the stable block and the laundry, he was killed by the explosion caused by rising petrol fumes.

His legacy, as far as I was concerned, was to level part of the tip and plant trees. The aim was to stop people dumping rubbish and reclaim the land by sealing off the entrance. This has worked in parts. Where the ground has been levelled and trees planted, there is a quiet grove, with a wide expanse of snowdrops. Hay and straw bales are now stored on what used to be the deepest pit. The rest of the tip has not been touched and still has mature trees and deep gullies. Local people are still dumping unwanted fridges and other items.

It was a lovely surprise to find our first tiny garden still flourishing. The few snowdrop bulbs we planted were now a healthy clump. The violets were yet to flower, but one of the primroses had three pale flowers which shone in the sunlight.

My next search was for the bank of violets where my sister and I used to pick a violet bouquet for my mother each year. It was a real delight to find them growing en masse in the same spot where I used to harvest nearly fifty years ago! I was able to gather a useful amount, which I carried triumphantly home in a paper bag to show my parents.

When we reached Solihull that evening, I added more leaves and flowers to the vinegar and made up a tincture. As I opened the paper bag, my nose was assailed by a forgotten scent. It was light and delicate like the violet blooms themselves - a real joy to discover after so many years.

Violet's historical story

There is something deeply satisfying about continuing a well-known herbal practice. It is comforting to think of joining all the men and women down the centuries who have gone out into the highways and byways at this time of year in search of the delicate violet flower. It is not just her scent which delights us, she bears within her leaves and flowers the amazing ability to treat a score of different conditions and ailments.

The time for harvest is relatively short. The sweet-scented Violet appears at the end of February and has finished blooming by the end of April. Although there are over one hundred different species of violets around the world, there are five native to Great Britain with viola odorata being grown both for her scent and her medicinal properties.

How far back do we need to go to discover how violets were used? They were mentioned frequently by Homer and Virgil. Mrs Grieve tell us they were used by Athenians 'to moderate anger,' to procure sleep and 'to comfort and strengthen the heart.' Pliny prescribed a liniment of Violet root and vinegar for gout and disorder of the spleen, and states that a garland or chaplet of Violets worn about the head would dispel the fumes of wine and prevent headache and dizziness. Who would have considered violet today as a cure for hangovers!

One of the difficulties when searching for the ancient British uses of plants is being able to identify them from the names given to them in Olde English Herbals. Stephen Pollington gives the example of the name Bonewort (bannwyrt) , a plant which was possibly violet or small knapweed. He says the Latin plant name, “viola” could be known in Old English as bannwyrt, cleafre or bofe.

The Olde English Herbarium states “This plant which one calls viola and by another name banwyrt is of three kinds, one then is dark purple and the second white and the third is yellow, the yellow [one] is however of greatest use to leeches” (Leeches is the name given to anyone offering medicinal help) This herbal also notes, “The scent of sweet violets was used by horsemen in their potions for calming troublesome horses.

Mrs Grieve says the ancient Britons used violet flowers as a cosmetic, and in a Celtic poem they are recommended to be employed steeped in goats' milk to increase female beauty. She quotes the Anglo-Saxon translation of the tenth century Herbarium of Apuleius where V. purpureum is recommended 'for new wounds and eke for old' and for 'hardness of the maw.' She also give a recipe from Askham's Herbal printed in 1550 for insomnia, “'For the that may not slepe for sickness seeth this herb in water and at even let him soke well hys feete in the water to the ancles, wha he goeth to bed, bind of this herbe to his temples.”

The use of sweet violets has been fairly consistent over the centuries. It is a plant rich in vitamins. Mary Beith tells of the Gaelic Regimen Sanitatis (Rule of Health ) compiled by John Beaton of Islay in 1563 “After blood-letting, convalescents were to have a light but vitamin –rich meal of kale, mallow, sage and parsley. In summer this was varied with the addition of borage, bugloss, violets, spinach, lettuce, the tops of fennel and other herbs.”

The sixteenth century herbalist, Gerard, used violets for inflammations, especially of the chest. He said “violets make a plate which is most pleasant and wholesome. Especially it comforteth the heart and other inward parts.”

In July 1634, the Stratford herbalist, John Hall, (who was also Shakespeare’s son in law), mentions using “the mild laxative violet syrup” when treating the Poet William Drayden for a tertiary fever six months before his death. Hall must have known his patient was very unwell and needed to be treated gently, because his normal prescriptions for fevers involved emetics administered in oxymels.

This use of violets as a pleasant laxative continued for centuries. Apothecaries during Charles II’s reign regularly sold a conserve called “Violet Plate” to the general public.

The 17th century herbalist, Culpepper used violets not only for inflammations but also for piles. In his treatment, violets were fried with egg yolks and applied to the offending haemorrhoids.

In 1740, Sir John Hill wrote “The flowers are the part used; boiled water is to be poured on them just enough to cover them and it is to stand all night; when it is strained clear off, the sugar is to be added to it at the rate of two pounds to each pint and it is to be melted over the fire. This makes syrup of violets, an excellent gentle purge for children. The leaves are dried also and are used in the decoctions for slyusters. An infusion of them works by urine.” Rogers tells us that the infusion was made from a cold maceration of the flowers and leaves for 8 hours followed by slow warming to preserve the delicate properties of the plant.

Salmon and Pechey, who practiced at the end of 17th century prescribed violets for catarrh, fever, headaches and pleurisy.

Nineteenth and early twentieth century herbalists were still using violets regularly. Kemsey’s British Herbal of 1838 states, “The leaves of the violet are gently laxative. The syrup is used as a purgative to infants.” This use was echoed by Dr Fernie in 1914 when he wrote, “Violet flower syrup mixed with almond oil is a ‘capital laxative for children’.”

Today, although the general public has no idea that violets can be used medicinally, herbalists are still using the flowers and leaves for a wide range of conditions, from coughs, bronchitis and, constipation through eczema to breast cancer. We may have lost the fields of commercially grown violets around Stratford on Avon and other parts of the country, but if you look hard enough, this shy spring flower continues to offer us her bounty.

References
Beith, M Healing Threads: Traditional Medicines of the Highlands and Islands 1995 Polygon ISBN 0 7486 6199 9
Grieve, M A Modern Herbal 1973 (revised) Random House ISBN 1-904779018
Hadfield, G Hadfield’s Herbal : The Secret History of British Plants 2007 Penguin Books ISBN 978 0 140 51577 0
Hawes, Z Wild Drugs: A Forager's guide to healing plants 2010 Octopus Publishing Group ISBN 9781856753104
Lane, J John Hall and his Patients 1996 The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust ISBN 0-90420104X
McIntyre, A The Complete Herbal Tutor 2010 Gaia Books Ltd ISBN 9781856753180
Pollington, S Leechcraft 2000 Anglo-Saxon Books ISBN 1 989281 238
Weed, S Wise Woman Herbal Healing Wise 1989 Ash Tree Publishing ISBN 0 9614620 2 7
Wood, M The Earthwise Herbal: A Complete Guide to Old World Medicinal Plants 2008 North Atlantic Books ISBN 9 781556 436925

Violet Magic

I don't know about the rest of you, but I have periods in my herbal life when things seem very mundane and uninteresting and then something happens which is just so exciting it takes your breath away. That happened to me today, so I thought I would share.

Part of my apprentices' tasks, which I am sharing, is to find a herbal ally for the year and observe, grow and make things from them. My ally is sweet violet, viola odorata. I have a patch of violets at the bottom of my garden grown from a transplant from my parent's farm which was in turn transplanted from the local stone quarry/tip where my sister and I used to play as children nearly fifty years ago.

In the autumn, I gathered a bag full of leaves to dry and I've been trying them as a herbal tea. They are pleasant when drunk with food, but not especially exciting. Now the violet flowers are blooming, I promised myself I would make my first batch of violet syrup. I first came across this in Susun Weed's "Healing Wise" book and Zoe Hawes uses the same methodology in her recipe for violet syrup in "Wild drugs, a forager's guide to healing plants".

The basic recipe is to fill a clean glass jar with violet flowers, cover with boiling water and leave overnight with the lid screwed on. The next day, strain and measure the infused liquid. For every 7fl ozs of liquid add 5 ozs of sugar. Zoe Hawes also recommends adding a good squeeze of lemon juice. Put all the ingredients into a pan and bring to the boil and simmer for a couple of minutes. Pour the resulting syrup into a sterilised bottle or jar, seal, label and date. Store in the fridge and discard if it starts going mouldy. The suggested dosage for a child’s cough or slight constipation is 1-2tsps given at bedtime. If you are making this for a child under two years old and usually make your syrups with honey, use sugar this time.

I gathered the plants yesterday morning after my planned trip to Sheffield had to be aborted at the last minute. There weren't very many flowers, but I covered them with a cupful of boiling water and sealed them in a glass jar for 24 hours. (The recipe says overnight, but I was busy this morning and couldn't get back to them until early afternoon.)

The strained liquid smelt green and uninviting and tasted of nothing much. I was expecting a subtle aroma of violet, but I think it was too cold for the flowers to produce any scent! For 5 fl ozs (1cup) of liquid I added 3ozs of sugar and put it in a pan to bring to the boil while sterilising a glass jar in the oven. Zoe's recipe suggested adding a good squeeze of lemon juice to the mixture, so I found a forgotten half lemon in the fridge, squeezed it and added the juice to the heating syrup.

This is where the magic occured - the syrup suddenly turned the most delightful shade of pink! I wanted to dance around the kitchen with excitement!. I realise it was probably just a litmus reaction to adding the acidic lemon juice, but it would be a fantastic demonstration to show children! (Not quite as good as watching St John's wort oil turn red, but similar and much quicker!)

When the syrup had been brought to the boil and simmered for a couple of minutes, I strained it out through muslin into the sterilised jar, labelled and dated it and left it to cool on the kitchen table. It's now safely in the fridge waiting for a child to emerge with either a cough or constipation. (Don't you love it when herbs can be used for such different things!)

Finding a herbal ally

Most of this post was taken from and inspired by a similar post on Kristine Brown's blog, Dancing in a Field of Tansy I've been following Kristine's blog for several years now and have learned many things. She also produces a wonderful children's herbal ezine called Herbal Roots.

As part of a spiritual/herbal renaissance, Kristine is following in the footsteps of Gail Faith Edwards. The idea of a herbal ally comes from Gail's book, “Opening our wild hearts to the healing herbs” I read this book about three years ago and have forgotten much of what she wrote so I am grateful to Kristine for bringing it back into my consciousness and for providing me with a task for both myself and my apprentices.

Gail says, "Pick a new plant each year to focus on. Be sure to grow the plant, or meet it in the wild, observe it, make different medicines and foods with it, use it in many ways, consume it regularly, or use as applicable as often as possible, and constantly observe. Noting all you observe. Keeping your own notes is critically important. Learn to meditate with plants. Learn to take care of them, learn to process and use them, one by one. Fall in love with each and every plant you work with, one by one. Recognize the living being there, the spirit of the plant. Respect its power. Open your wild heart to it."

Susan Weed suggests “Choose a plant that grows very near to you ... no more than a one-minute walk from your door. You don't need to know the name of the plant, or anything about it. You will be sitting with your plant every day, so, if possible, choose one that grows in a quiet and lovely place ... in a pot on your balcony is just fine ... in a park is great ... so is an alley ... or a backyard. "

Susun offers six different green ally exercises to get to know the ally more intimately.
1. Meditate/sit and breathe with your green ally for 3-10 minutes a day
2. Make a detailed drawing of the ally as accurate as possible. Next make a soft, impressionistic drawing
3. Find out what parts of the ally are typically used. Find out if other parts are useful. Make oils, tinctures and vinegars of all the useful plant parts (separately)
4. Observe the conditions the plant chooses to grow in.
5. Write a story from the point of view of your green ally. (If you have trouble getting started, write a warm up page praising your green ally and telling him/her how much you like him/her and why.
6. Introduce a friend to your green ally. Tell them all about your ally.

You may wish to include these other exercises Kristine suggests
• write a song about your green ally
• write poems about your green ally
• if edible, eat your green ally as often as possible try your ally in tea form
• start some seeds of your green ally so you can watch them grow from a seedling into full life
• harvest your ally at all stages of growth
• sketch, draw, paint your ally at all stages of growth

I am going to choose violet (viola odorata) as my herbal ally. She is a herb I have been meaning to learn more about for a while and have not made time to do so. 2011 gives me the opportunity to rectify that omission.

January Musings

Many people find winter difficult. In some respects, I’m one of them. Not because of Seasonal Affected Disorder (SAD), but because Christmas brings such a welter of responsibilities and activities that from the end of December I seem to lose the ability to think or create or do anything!

I say that, yet, looking back, the truth is I’ve done so much, I’m just exhausted. Sleep helps. Playing helps even more, but my kind of play usually results in much less sleep, so it’s a vicious circle! I’ve enjoyed myself and, from the fun, been able to kick start my creative muse and finish the adult romance I’ve been posting on the internet called Tears in a Dry Land.

It’s been a long time in gestation. Chapters 1-5 were written up in the caravan in Cornwall in 2007, Chapters 6 and 7 were completed during December 2008, but I’d never thought about the ending. I’m very bad at endings. I’m good at starting new projects, having new ideas, working on them until they are about half way through, but finishing them is like drawing blood out of a stone. I have to drag myself, kicking and screaming to ensure their completion.

Luckily I have two good friends, Steven and Matthew, who act as my editors. I can rely on them to spot not just spellings and bad grammar, but also parts of the story they’re not happy with. Their comments are usually very helpful and I’m able to change bits, add extra pages or cut things to make a much tighter, more interesting creation. It’s very satisfying when you’re happy with the last few pages and hope your readers will be too.

Chris flew off to the French Alps for a week’s skiing with his cousin and her friends last Friday. I decided to spend the weekend with my parents as they’d been suffering badly with colds since Christmas but are now much improved.

Despite the howling winds and lashing rain on Friday night, Saturday turned out to be a beautiful day (if you wrapped up warmly!). I spent time down at the Sanctuary pondering what needed to be done over the coming year.

The body responsible for maintaining live electricity pylons had written to my father the previous week, asking if they could bring a JCB into the Sanctuary to replace the wooden pole which holds the electricity cables. My initial reaction was one of shock and horror at the thought of the desecration which could be caused, but thinking about it more calmly, I realised this could be the opportunity I’ve been looking for.

The pylon sits in the middle of the top herb bed. It is completely out of place and I’ve worried about the energetic difficulties it causes to the plants. Now, if they are agreeable, we could move the live wires completely out of the Sanctuary, to the corner of the field which can’t be used for hay. The herb bed could be given a totally new lease of life.

The other major project which has to be completed before March is moving the white mulberry tree. It’s grown so large; it completely blocks the view of the valley from the summer house, so my parents decided it must go. I have asked Fiona Hopes, who came to one of my workshops three years ago, if she can find it a new home, so I am waiting to hear what she thinks.

Visiting the Sanctuary in winter is always difficult, because I see all the things which need to be done, but it’s too cold/wet/frosty to do anything about them. There is so much grass, thistles, fewerfew and other plants to remove from the main beds. Other beds have been totally overgrown and need to be reclaimed if any of the herbs I’ve planted there can flourish and be harvested next year.

The winter does allow me to see possibilities. If the ivy could be removed from under the “ancient woodland” area, we could plant English bluebells, primroses, ramsons/wild garlic and maybe other woodland plants. If the stream bed could be extended a little, we could start a watercress site – something I’ve wanted to do for a while.

There are several areas where fallen twigs and branches need tidying up into piles ready for burning, opening up other parts of the Sanctuary which we could perhaps use for storytelling or other events.

Despite all these plans running around in my head, it wasn’t until I began to stop and look properly; I began to see the wonder in the winter landscape. There were several patches of violets flowering underneath the hawthorn and crab apple trees. The bank was awash with thick, green daffodil spears and pristine drops of snow lay on the grass from snowdrops bursting into flower.

I took several photographs to prove Spring is on the way before resting for a while on the bench. A pair of buzzards were wheeling above the pasture in the next field and as they moved to other territory, I watched a kestrel and a rook battle with each other - something I’d never seen before.

The dried leaves of the Joe Pye Weed stalks (gravelroot) clattered in the wind, reminding me to listen, to be present, rather than consumed by my own thoughts. There was a tiny bird flying between the briars overhanging the fence and the tunnel of ivy sheltering the meditation space, but I couldn’t make out what it was. I know there are a pair of wrens, a robin and some finches, as well as blackbirds, hedge sparrows and other birds in the Sanctuary, but the movement was two quick to make an identification.

It was good to sit and feel the hum of the earth beginning to wake again all around me, giving strength to return to the real world, taking the confidence of new life and new energy with me.

Tasting the Garden

Chris was away painting the caravan last night, so I walked home from the station in glorious sunshine and was able to go out into the garden to survey what might be around to make up the accompanying salad for my macaroni cheese.

Dandelions were everywhere, many with golden flowers fully open to embrace the sunshine. I was looking at one of Susun Weed's site's recently where she talked about eating the flowers as well as the leaves, so I picked several to see what they might contribute.

The sorrel was also growing in great profusion with far less half eaten leaves than normal, so I picked a handful of those as well. Behind the well cropped Mexican orange tree was a mass of new violet leaves. Every time I've looked at them since December, the leaves have been eaten and sparse, even when the violet flowers were blooming, but now, since the flowers have gone over, it seems the plants have put all their energy into growing new leaves! There has been a lot of discussion about violet leaves on the Herbwifery Forum with many contributors mentioning that they used the leaves in salads or to make tea. They have all commented on how mucilagenous the leaves are, which I couldn't quite get my head around since they look exactly the same as most leaves which are definitely not mucilagenous.

I've only ever made infused oil with the leaves and have never been tempted to eat them, but this time I thought I would take the plunge. I picked a leaf and chewed it. It was a total revelation! There was little actual flavour, but it wasn't unpleasant and as I chewed it, I could feel the strands of mucilage developing in my mouth. Now I know what everyone else was talking about! I felt like dancing around the garden shouting "I know what mucilagenous means!" Of course, I didn't - I'm far too quiet and reserved for that!

The lemon balm is also growing well, so several shoots were added to the salad mix. It took me a while to find the "Jack by the hedge". The plants were hiding at the back of blackcurrant bush but flowering although they were only about 18 inches high - very small compared with the 3-4 feet they reach in summer. Debs admonished me for pulling them all up when she visited last year, so again, I took the plunge and chewed some leaves. They were amazing - full of flavour with a faint garlic tang to it. The large leaves also went into the salad mix!

A few sprigs of St John's wort and mint completed my gathering. My garden tour showed up how much weeding I still have to do as the creeping buttercup and hedge woundwort have really taken over some patches. It was lovely to see the new pansies still blooming everywhere and the new stocks are also beginning to flower. The new leaves of the goldenseal are beginning to unfurl and the black cohosh has uncurled its leaves. Maybe on Sunday it will be dry enough to get out and attach things with a fork!

Later on, I made up some new tincture concoctions for myself and Chris, since both our bottles were empty. Mine has a mixture of hawthorn flower, nettle, burdock, vervain, cleavers and dandelion root with a couple of teaspoons of rue and horsechestnut seed. Chris' is more straightforward - hawthorn flower, nettle root and a touch of dandelion root. We take a small dose at breakfast in orange juice to accompany our porridge.