My healing garden

One of the rea­sons I gar­den is to feel bet­ter. By sur­round­ing myself with beauty, engag­ing in mod­er­ate exer­cise and inhal­ing plenty of fresh air I am drawn into a euphoric state that com­forts me. How­ever, gar­den­ing can also be a source of frus­tra­tion. My bat­tle with fever­few is a good example.

When I moved into my lovely home with a ready­made gar­den I knew noth­ing about gar­den­ing. Since I couldn’t dis­tin­guish between a flower and a weed I nur­tured every­thing, includ­ing fever­few. Fever­few appears inno­cent enough. It has some nice green­ery and small flow­ers that resem­ble daisies, but it only took one sea­son for me to real­ize that it will take over your gar­den! I have spent the past two sum­mers rip­ping it out but it is win­ning. I can’t get rid of it. Now I find in research­ing this arti­cle on heal­ing plants and herbs that fever­few is one of those plants that is actu­ally good for us.

Fever­few, a mem­ber of the sun­flower fam­ily, has been used for cen­turies in Euro­pean folk med­i­cine as a rem­edy for headaches, arthri­tis and fevers. In fact, its name comes from a Latin word mean­ing “fever reducer.” Accord­ing to an arti­cle pub­lished by the Uni­ver­sity of Mary­land Med­ical Cen­ter a sur­vey of 270 peo­ple with migraines in Great Britain found that more than 70 per­cent of them felt much bet­ter after tak­ing an aver­age of 2 to 3 fresh fever­few leaves daily. Sev­eral human stud­ies have used fever­few for migraine pre­ven­tion and treatment.

Gar­lic, flax and aloe vera all have med­i­c­i­nal uses dat­ing back cen­turies and like fever­few, we can grow them at home.

Ancient ances­tors used gar­lic to increase viril­ity. It has also been used to treat every­thing from indi­ges­tion and snakebites to depres­sion. Ben­e­fi­cial chem­i­cals found in gar­lic are ajoene (pre­vents clog­ging of the arter­ies) and allicin (a chem­i­cal that has anti-tumor and anti-cancer prop­er­ties). Gar­lic appears to help to lower blood pres­sure and cho­les­terol. “For max­i­mum ben­e­fit, you need to have about three medium cloves of gar­lic per day. Dry gar­lic or gar­lic left out too long, lose their healthy ben­e­fits,” says Suzanna Zick, N.D., M.P.H., a natur­o­pathic physi­cian and research inves­ti­ga­tor at the Uni­ver­sity of Michi­gan Health Sys­tem, Depart­ment of Fam­ily Medicine.

Plant gar­lic in the fall and it will begin grow­ing in spring. It should be har­vested when the tops droop over and dry out. Dig up the bulbs and let them cure out­doors for a few days before storing.

Another ancient herb with mod­ern health ben­e­fits is flax. Linen made from the flax plant was a crit­i­cal ele­ment in the ancient Egypt­ian mum­mi­fi­ca­tion process and flax seed oil was used in embalm­ing. Flax seed oil con­tains high amounts of antiox­i­dants and it is rich in omega 3 and 6 fatty acids. Peo­ple con­sume flaxseeds and flaxseed oil hop­ing to lower cho­les­terol lev­els, pre­vent arthri­tis, reduce the like­li­hood of heart dis­ease and relieve dry eyes.

Aloe vera was also used in ancient Egypt in the embalm­ing process. Mod­ern day uses of aloe vera include treat­ment of con­sti­pa­tion, minor burns, canker sores, pso­ri­a­sis, and wounds. It has also been used to lower blood sugar for peo­ple with type-2 dia­betes. More tra­di­tional uses include sun­burn relief and reduc­ing the pain of insect bites.

Aloe vera is a suc­cu­lent that is easy to grow indoors in a pot­ting mix designed for suc­cu­lents. It requires six hours of sun­light per day.

There are a num­ber of herbs, eas­ily grown in our region, that are ben­e­fi­cial to our health. Com­mon herbs like oregano, rose­mary, pars­ley and gar­lic can replace salt and bring out nat­ural fla­vors in a meal. Rose­mary, one of nature’s most pow­er­ful antiox­i­dants, is thought to help with mem­ory and may even have cancer-prevention prop­er­ties. Basil, oregano and rose­mary can help fight colds and chronic cough is some­times treated with a thyme tea. Stom­ach aches may be soothed with gin­ger. Gin­ger con­tains gin­gerols, which decreases oxida­tive prod­ucts in the diges­tive tract that cause nau­sea. The key is to eat real gin­ger and not things fla­vored artificially.

A Uni­ver­sity of Mary­land Med­ical Cen­ter arti­cle warns that “although the use of herbs is a time-honored approach to strength­en­ing the body and treat­ing dis­ease they can con­tain com­po­nents that trig­ger side effects and adversely inter­act with other herbs, sup­ple­ments, or med­ica­tions. For these rea­sons, herbs should be taken with care, under the super­vi­sion of a health care provider qual­i­fied in the field of botan­i­cal medicine.”

Michelle Pear­son is an OSU Exten­sion Mas­ter Gar­dener volunteer.

Posted by Master Gardener on Feb 1 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.