5 Easy to Grow Remedies

By Dorothy Foltz-Gray, Natural Solutions

Luckily, you don’t have to head to landscaping school to create a medicinal garden. You don’t even need a backyard, since many healing plants do well in containers. Growing herbs is so simple that even people who routinely kill houseplants will find they can do it. Many herbs, in fact, thrive on benign neglect; the less water they get, the stronger their medicinal compounds. And in most cases, there’s no need to fertilize them. Turning the herbs into soothing teas and tinctures is easy, too. Below, we’ve picked five of our favorites and asked experts to help us understand just how to grow and harvest them—and how to transform them into aromatic, and often tasty, healers.

Rosemary
What it’s good for: Sharpening memory
When British herbalist Anne McIntyre was a student, she kept rosemary sprigs on her desk during classes, squeezing the oils onto her hands. “The scent stimulates blood flow to the brain and aids concentration,” says McIntyre, author of The Medicinal Garden and ten other herb-related books. Years later, science came to the same conclusion. In a 1998 study, University of Miami researchers exposed 40 adults to three minutes of rosemary scent. The group showed increased alertness and worked math problems faster—and no less accurately—than they had before the aromatherapy session.

How To Grow It: Rosemary is a Mediterranean plant, thriving in sun and well-drained soil. If your winters are very cold, grow it in a pot and take the pot inside for the winter. It’s hard to grow from seed, so start with a plant. Or cut a spike from a friend’s plant at the woody end. Add rooting hormone (available at plant centers) to light soil, insert the cutting, and chances are it will root.

How To Use It: Ancient scholars used to wear wreaths of rosemary around their heads, but you don’t have to go that far. Nurse Dorie Byers, author of Herbal Remedy Gardens, simmers a cup of rosemary needles in two quarts of uncovered water, letting the smell waft through the house whenever she’s doing brain work. Or you can brew rosemary tea, adding one to two teaspoons of rosemary needles to one cup boiling water. Steep it for five minutes, strain the herbs, add a squirt of lime juice, and enjoy. Of course, if you’re feeling both forgetful and hungry, rubbing chopped rosemary over chicken or fish creates a dish you’re bound to remember.

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Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of
Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

Sheri L.

3:56AM PST on Jan 6, 2012

thanks I'm growing most of these !!!

send a green star

Hanan W.

4:05AM PDT on May 27, 2011

thanks tremendously!

Cheryl B.

7:07PM PDT on May 21, 2011

thanks

May H.

2:17PM PDT on May 17, 2011

David Erik B.

4:41AM PDT on May 4, 2011

Yes, I hope enough of the good.

Blueberry M.

9:28AM PDT on Apr 30, 2011

thanks!

Einat B.

6:55AM PDT on Apr 25, 2011

....need to get my hands on some aloe, sage and lavender....tricky tricky

Noora B.

7:03AM PDT on Apr 24, 2011

About Aloe Vera. There are actually 2 types of aloe vera plants. One is a bitter variety and the other is a sweet variety. I am not sure of the differences in their benefits, although I know my mother has them down. I believe the sweet variety you can ingest.

May C.

3:25AM PDT on Apr 24, 2011

I fully agree with Linda J We need to find alternative ways of
taking care of ourselves. People with allergies have to have a perscription for Benedryl, and other simple meds that they used to buy otc

Danielle W.

11:18AM PDT on Apr 20, 2011

yay