Ingham’s W RLD
AFTER a hard day gardening I like to pause and admire the flowers. Then my wife does the same – only to spot the weeds that I have missed. But between us we are unwittingly proud owners of a natural medicine chest, according to two new books. Lurking in the rockery we even have that most precious of medicines: a hangover cure.
Finnish herbalist Henriette Kress – she’s well named – says plants we all love, such as roses, and weeds we all hate, such as nettles, can heal our lives.
Henriette learned her trade foraging with her grandmother in the forests of Finland. Now this 21st- century wise woman has produced a herbalist’s bible with recipes for footbaths, teas, elixirs, vodka, wart removers and cream for wasp stings.
Scented rose petals in baths will lift your mood and calm your nerves while the petals can be used to heal small wounds.
Dandelion leaves pep up a salad while their bitter taste tackles heartburn or loss of appetite.
Lemon balm can tame stress while St John’s Wort, whose yellow flowers grace many a field, can treat small cuts, sprains and bruises. Crush a few fresh flowers to release the juices which will turn blood- red and then apply them to the wound.
A tea of raspberry leaves can treat diarrhoea and eczema while the silica in horsetail helps to heal broken bones.
Mullein, a tall weed with yellow flowers that thrives in our rockery, turns out to be an excellent cure for earache if the flowers are turned into an oil. I’m going to have to stop digging it up.
But the most versatile weed is the most unpopular: the nettle. Its cooked leaves are a substitute for spinach while its teas, tinctures and juices can keep hay fever at bay.
I can’t vouch for any of these cures and please be careful. Henriette advises avoiding polluted roadsides or sites which may be contaminated with manure such as pastures. But if you’re feeling really adventurous you could try Henriette’s cure for the curse of sciatica. She advocates turning classic red and white fly agaric toadstools into a potion to be rubbed on the spine. But she cautions: “Apply it externally of course. Internal use can be rather fatal.”
As for a hangover cure try thyme tea sweetened with honey before going to bed and perhaps again in the morning. With a bit of luck your prayers will be answered by the medicines in your flowerbed.
Practical Herbs 1 & 2 by Henriette Kress, Aeon Books, £ 19.99 each. EVEN birds face a North- South divide. Rare spotted flycatchers increased 66 per cent in Scotland between 2011- 16 but have declined 65 per cent in England since 1994. Willow warblers are up 21 per cent north of the border since 1994 but down 40 per cent in England, says the Breeding Bird Survey. I reckon Scotland’s midges are luring these summer visitors north. POET Pam Ayres is crusading for hedgehogs. Her latest poignant book shows how to save them: check bonfires before lighting them, watch where you strim, make sure hogs can climb out of ponds and cut a CD- sized hole in your fence so hedgehogs can meet and mate. GREEN TIP: Hang washing out to dry. Tumble dryers rack up a summer energy bill of £ 375million, says the Energy Saving Trust. THERE are far more apes than previously thought. The Wildlife Conservation Society found 360,000 western lowland gorillas and 130,000 chimps in Western Equatorial Africa. That’s one- third and one- tenth more than previously thought, says Science Advances. A MONTH ago I mentioned a Royal Horticultural Society survey to find plants ignored by Britain’s hungry deer population. About 500 Daily Express readers joined the study and the RHS can now add herbaceous peonies, Zantedeschia aethiopica, Fremontodendron californicum and lilac to the list of beautiful plants deer don’t eat.