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Website of poet Elizabeth Rimmer

Half a Hundred Herbs

Haggard Herbs

I think this is lesser skullcap, which I found growing wild on a grass verge near the local cinema. It’s on a narrow strip of land above a steep bank down to the river, too narrow for anyone to build on, and I’ve found plants there I’ve never seen anywhere else. In parts of Ireland, the word ‘haggard’ describes just this sort of place. Originally it derives from the old Norse ‘hæɡərd’ meaning a small enclosure near a farmhouse where crops were stored, but later it was used to mean the small scraps of land, too small for farm-scale cultivation, where the poor were allowed to grow potatoes for themselves, and later again, land that had been allowed to run wild. I also noticed, when I googled the ON word, that it is now a fictional Irish city which features in a series of apocalyptic fantasy novels, but moving on —-

Actually, that isn’t too far off where I was going with this post. When I was trying to describe the next phase of my writing (both about herbs and about poetry) I caught myself saying that when things get a bit apocalyptic, people start getting into herbs. So things must be fairly apocalyptic just at the moment, wouldn’t you think? The word ‘apocalypse’ might be too strong, but there is a serious disenchantment with the political, economic and social structures of modern life on many levels. There’s a reaction to the way we work at jobs we don’t like for the money to buy goods we need to make up for the time we don’t have; or the way we have to medicate the problems brought on by the life we are expected to live; or the way our lives are constantly being tweaked to suit the systems we set up to make things simpler; or the way shedloads of information we don’t have time to absorb are being thrown at us as a substitute for actually getting to make decisions for ourselves; or the way ‘aspirations’ are distracting us from observations of how life actually is. (This post is turning out a lot more ranty than I expected.)

Last time there was so much going on with herbs was back in the seventies when we had the energy crisis, the three-day week, riots on the streets, the threat of petrol rationing and the imminent collapse of life as we know it (little did we know!). People reacted with the self-sufficiency movement, the slow food movement, the alternative therapy movement, and a whole swathe of folksy picture books teaching you how to make herb teas, pot pourri, candles with dried flowers stuck on them, and nettle soup. Since then cookery has got more serious, herbal medicine has got more scientific (at least at its best), and the herbal beauty industry has got way more commercial. But there’s still an alternative, romantic, recusant vibe about herbs.

It happens often. When St Bernard got sick of how overdeveloped monastic life had got under the regime of Cluny, and he took his followers off to start the Cistercian order, one of his ideals was that the monks should stop going to expensive doctors who prescribed elaborate medicines, but should use ‘simple green herbs’ like the poor did. When the Irish monks went to their hermitages they wrote poems about the herbs they found in the surrounding forest. In the Bible a dinner of green herbs is a life of integrity, as opposed to the rich food and intrigues of the kings palaces. And it is certainly happening now. We are looking to the wild plants of the hedges and the haggards, not just for food, medicine and comfort, but for something symbolic.

The other thing we turn to is art. Of all sorts. Theatre in the prisoner of war camps in the second world war, murals in Northern Ireland, dance in Palestine, and music everywhere – the blues, canto jondo, protest songs of all sorts. And poetry. I wouldn’t have said this twenty years ago, because the intellectual energy seemed to be elsewhere, but it’s certainly back now. People are writing, reading and sharing poetry in ways they haven’t done for years. Poetry is beginning to reflect the lives outside the academic enclosure, use different dialects and registers, take on concerns and experiences that would have been seen as ‘unpoetic’. Poets are no longer cloistered and privileged beings who don’t get their hands dirty, or who need to be protected from the harsh world of ‘real life’, they are in it, activists, carers, fundraisers and recorders of what is happening around us. And people are beginning to see poetry as part of the process of tackling the problems of our lives. What’s named can be mended.

So both sides of my writing life are in the haggards – the wild outside places, where we might find new ways of coming to terms with the hard places of life, both practical and artistic. It’s a very interesting place to be.

S

January 8, 2016
Half a Hundred Herbs Week 50 – Myrtle

This is myrtus communis, the sweet myrtle. When it matures it should have deliriously pretty white flowers, but this plant may take a year or two more before it gets to that point. It isn’t reliably hardy in Scotland, so it lives in the greenhouse in the winter, and will have to stay in a pot whether it likes it or not.

Myrtle is the emblem of fertility and faithful love, so was often used to makes wreaths and bouquets for brides. Its leaves are fragrant, with a fresh pungent scent similar to eucalyptus (to which it is related) but with a deeper note something between rosemary and bay. They have been used in pot pourris, and I have discovered a recipe for furniture polish in Lesley Bremness’ World of Herbs, which includes a strong infusion of myrtle leaves.

Of recent years I have noticed reference to their culinary use in Mediterranean and Middle Eastern recipes, and I’ve even seen dried leaves on sale in larger branches of Tesco, but the scent is so powerful I haven’t yet had the nerve to try it.

Myrtle is the fiftieth herb on my list, and marks the end of this phase of the Half a Hundred Herbs project. I’ve learned a lot, grown a lot of new herbs, met some very interesting people and seen some fabulous gardens. The next phase won’t be quite so intensive. There are poems cooking, and some thoughts about the way we use herbs, some practical, some magical and some ideological, that I will be exploring. I’m going to focus a bit more on the way I use herbs, on the cooking and gardening and preserving, on remedies and the use of scent and colour, and the ecology and biodiversity implications of growing and foraging. I hope you have enjoyed the posts so far and that you will stick with me as we go into phase 2. In the meantime, I’ll leave you with a picture of the world’s smallest knot garden at its height in August.

November 25, 2015
Half a Hundred Herbs Week 49 – Daisy

I had to look hard for this photo. I am sure I must have taken many pictures with daisies in them, but they seem to have been at the back of the chorus, with larger more showy herbs taking the limelight. And yet every poet, from Chaucer to Alice Oswald seems to have written about them and loved them. We’ve all made daisy chains, we’ve all looked for the first daisies in spring, which some people say doesn’t start until you can put your foot on nine daisies at the same time (seven in some places). They seem to flower earlier and earlier and to get into the most pristine of lawns (good, I say), but for a long time I didn’t know of any herbal use to which they could be put.

Then I came across a book called How to Enjoy Your Weeds by Audrey Wynne Hatfield, whose The Magic of Herbs had started me on the whole herbal enterprise. She says they were used as an ointment for bruises, and for treating varicose veins, and has a recipe for something called ‘daisy whisky’. It takes a gallon of flowers, however, so I don’t see myself trying this any time soon. Mrs Grieve says the taste is very bitter and acrid, so much so that insects won’t attack it, and that a decoction of the leaves has been used as a pesticide, so although it has a history of treating liver complaints and scurvy, I think it might be as well not to take it internally.

These moon daisies are not just larger versions, but an entirely different species, Leucanthemum vulgare, as opposed to the bellis perennis above. It is used externally like the smaller daisy, but can also be used internally to treat asthma and catarrh and bronchitis. It grows wild everywhere especially along the hedges and motorway verges, getting more ragged as the summer goes on, but so welcome in April.

Daisies used to be classified as compositae, but now they have a family of their own, the asteraceae. It can cause confusion if you are looking through older herbals.

November 19, 2015
Half a Hundred Herbs Week 48 – Clover

This is a larger photo than usual, mostly because you need a larger one to see the very small clover flowers in this patch of wasteland under some sycamores on the river bank.

This is white clover, but there is also red clover, a larger and showier plant, which has the pretty alternative names of clover rose and sugar bosses, and the tiny yellow clover, which you can find in lawns, less than an inch high and a quarter of an inch across.

Clover, to me, means honey. You can sprinkle the flower heads on salads for the sweetness of the nectar at the base of the little florets. Bees love it, and people can plant whole fields of it for the production of a white honey with a light flowery taste. When I was younger we used to get big tubs of Canadian clover honey, sometimes, and though I am very partial to the heather honey I discovered when I came to Scotland, this is still the definitive honey to me.

Clover’s big contribution, however, is nitrogen. It has nitrogen fixing nodules on its roots, which means that where you have grown it, the soil is richer and more fertile than before, and you often find it in green manure seed lists.

However, I have recently discovered that it also has medicinal uses. Hedgerow Medicine says that it was used as a blood cleanser,and for all kinds of chronic complaints that involve the build up of waste products – constipation, skin complaints and stubborn coughs. It is said to regulate unbalanced hormones, and is included in some cancer treatments, though this is considered controversial, and the plant is not recommended for anyone receiving blood thinning treatment.

Clover is generally regarded as lucky, especially if you find a four-leaved clover, and is said to ‘hinder witches’ under the name trefoil. In the Welsh story Culhwch and Olwen, from The Mabinogion, Olwen was said to be so beautiful that four white clovers sprang up in her footsteps. It’s a pleasant flower and I’m always glad to find it in my lawn.

November 5, 2015
Half a Hundred Herbs Week 47 – Tansy

This brassy leggy plant is nothing more nor less than a weed. It is tough as old boots, can read about five feet high if it really wants to, and spreads without mercy. Fortunately it doesn’t seem to set seed, but the roots are just about invincible.

In spring it is a bright green, healthily compact plant, vigorous and cheerful. The leaves smell quite pleasant – a green slightly musty faintly gingery scent. In fact in some places it is called ‘ginger buttons’ and in the 16th century some herbalists were asserting that it was as good as nutmeg and cinnamon. It was extensively eaten in puddings in spring (in fact there was a sort of pudding, something between a pancake and a souffle which was called a tansy) which must have helped against scurvy in the hungry gap. I wouldn’t go that far, but I did make rosemary and tansy biscuits once, and they weren’t bad, in a weird way.

Tansy was used as a strewing herb and a deterrent to flies, and was so valuable that it was taken to New England, where it made itself very much at home. Older herbals recommend it for cleaning wounds, poultices for aching joints, expelling intestinal worms, and disorders from kidney trouble to hysteria (hum). Even then it was meant to be used with caution as in large doses it was found to be an irritant. Nowadays there are NO recommended herbal uses, as it is generally regarded as toxic. One for the history books, I think.

October 27, 2015
Half a Hundred Herbs – Week 46 Yarrow

Yarrow is a tough herb which grows in hedgerows, fields, lawns, rocky hillsides, and frankly anywhere it can get the chance. It is not remotely particular in any way, flowering almost constantly ad holding its green feathery leaves through all but the most severe weather. In the wild it is a dull off-white – not particularly attractive – but there are garden varieties in bright pinks reds and yellows, and if you dry them they will keep their bright colours through the winter. Obdurate is the word. It has a dusty dark bitter scent, that is not unpleasant, and adds a good base note to herbal tea.

It lends its toughness to its healing properties too. It is most famous for stopping bleeding, so is used for cuts, nosebleeds and bruises, and as it has anti-viral and anti-microbial properties, it is good for fevers too. I’ve used it in combination with elderflower and peppermint to make a tea for colds and flu – its part in the process is to repair inflamed and damaged tissues, so it’s great for aching sinuses.

Famously, dried yarrow stems were used for divination in I Ching, but even in this country yarrow was used by girls trying to see their true loves. There are references to it in pagan celebrations, and it was sometimes linked to witchcraft. It comes up in poetry sometimes as a symbol of resistance, independence and survival, particularly in Gerry Loose’s magnificent Fault Lines which was published by Vagabond Poets last year.

Autumn is drawing on, but the summer was so late, and recent weather has been so mild and still that many flowers are still in bloom – roses, marigolds, welsh poppies, jasmine, cyclamen, mullein – even the violets are showing colour. But the wind has got up this week, and rain is forecast over the weekend. Birds are coming to the feeder, including tree sparrows and goldfinches, and the cormorant is back on the river. People have already started talking about potential for cold weather and storms – I think we might be in for a wild winter!

October 23, 2015
Half a Hundred Herbs Week 45 – Hawthorn

There is a belt of trees on the riverbank. Some of them are covered with ivy and intertwined with wild roses:

At this time of year they are a magnificent sight. There are blackbirds and thrushes most of the year round, chaffinches, robins and wrens, and most of the time the magpies jackdaws and rooks hang about there too, watching for food opportunities in the fields around. And any day now, the winter birds – waxwings redwings and fieldfares will be joining them from northern parts.

But hawthorn isn’t just good for wildlife. It is one of the most iconic trees in the herbals – only elder can come close for folklore references, and I think on the whole, that the hawthorn has it. They are the fairy trees of legend, and there are many roads in Ireland with an inconvenient kink in them so as not to take down particularly significant thorn bushes. If you sleep under thorn bushes the fairies may gain power over you – perhaps the famous Eildon Tree where Thomas the Rhymer met the fairy queen was a hawthorn? They are often planted at the boundaries of property – perhaps because they grow so quickly, perhaps because the thorns are a pretty good deterrent. It was a rite of passage one summer in my childhood to push through or jump over all the hawthorn hedges in front of all the houses in our street, disregarding the scratches and the irate neighbours, but those hedges were mostly clipped very short and neat. The ones that had been neglected were a different proposition.

The tree is one of the first in leaf and the flowers are the high point of late spring, a rising tide of foam on the eye-popping green. You aren’t supposed to bring them into the house, because they bring death and misfortune, (Mrs Grieve says they were believed to smell of the Plague, others associated it with TB especially in Ireland where the disease was common) but you can hang them over the cowshed to protect the milk. In Northern Ireland a hawthorn globe made of the berries can be hung on a house to protect from fire and lightning (maybe this is Seamus Heaney’s haw lantern?). Not a tree to be messed with.

The leaves are edible – children used to put them between bread and butter, and they must have been a good fresh bite of vitamin C in early spring. The berries are edible, too, though you are supposed to let them ‘blet’ like medlars before the taste is worth having. I’ve seen recipes for hawthorn chutney and fruit leather too.

Medicinally, however, hawthorn is very significant. Tincture from the berries is said to be good for the heart, for the circulation and for kidney troubles. I’ve seen it recommended for Raynaud’s syndrome mood, swings, restlessness and even ADHD. And Mrs Grieve says the timber is good for small articles, having a fine grain and taking a good polish. Better ask the fairies for permission first, I should think!

October 16, 2015
October in the Garden

There is no doubt that we are at the end of the gardening year. The blueberry leaves have turned the most vivid scarlet colour (don’t think it shows up too well here), and the berries are ripening as fast as the birds will let them. The fennel is a cloud of yellow flower and setting seed. It seems awfully late this year, so I don’t know how much of this seed will be viable. I have done a lot of tidying up and cutting back, planted a lot of bulbs – three kinds of tulip and what I hope will be a succession of daffodils for cutting, starting with ‘quail’ (pale yellow and, it claims, scented), and ‘sailboat’ and finishing up with the pheasants eye narcissus, which takes us almost to the end of May, and brought most of the pots into the greenhouse to overwinter. The window-boxes are down, and I have put out some cyclamen for the winter, and this bowl of cheeriness to get us started.

All the summer birds have gone, and the black-backed gull colony has dispersed for the winter. There are more ducks on the river, and flocks of starlings everywhere, lining all the roof tops, chattering in the bushes, swinging on the telephone lines. I have started to feed the birds again, and there are sparrows, goldfinches and a chaffinch at the feeder already. You can hear geese calling in the morning and evening as they head for the quiet fields on the Carse, and all this year’s froglets are looking for warm places to hide.

The last week was dominated by the moon. The harvest moon often dominates the sky in September, to the point that William Kennedy, one of the Glasgow Boys painted this picture (which you can now see in our local Art Gallery The Smith , was a supermoon this year,and accompanied by a full eclipse. We had bright days and cold clear nights of astonishing beauty. Today, however, is not like that. We have had torrential rain and we are expecting the same again later today. The fires is lit in the evenings, and it is dark in the morning when I go out to look after my grand-daughter. I have been trying new things with my making harvested herbs, herb pepper to add zing to pates and marinades, and some tinctures and herbal oils.I am going to try them in salves and remedies for the smaller ails and discomforts of the winter months. The year has turned, and it is time to be indoors.

October 7, 2015
Half a Hundred Herbs Week 44 – Santolina

This is santolina, also known as cotton lavender, one of the stock plants from which I took cuttings to create the knot garden.

The small plants have bulked up and do a good job of forming the south and east boundaries – in fact they’ve needed clipping twice already, unlike the hyssops which have done pretty well, but have been a little less enthusiastic – also I haven’t wanted to trim them too hard, because they are going to start flowering soon, and I don’t want to miss that.

The grey feathery stems and leaves make it a good plant for dry conditions (ha!) and it has a powdery musty sophisticated smell that is repellent to moths, and can be included in pot pourris for a bit of earthy depth. It produces bright button-like yellow flowers, if you let it, which hover-flies like.

I thought I knew all about santolina, but last weekend I went to see the Plants with Purpose and Appletreeman nursery, and there was a quiz to identify herbs from the leaves. And there was green santolina, which looked almost like the leaves of some cypress-type conifer, with a powerful scent which had a more resiny edge. I had no idea what it was, and guessed English mace in desperation. It was to be honest, a more interesting plant than the grey one, and I bet it would be more effective at repelling moths!

The nursery, which is in Bankfoot near Perth- you have to park on the main road and walk up a pretty steep track to get there – grew from a garden that isn’t much more than a large domestic garden (not more more, I think, than twice the size of mine), yet it is full of herbs and vegetables of all kinds, fruit and nut trees, bees, chickens, ducks and geese. Margaret and Andrew Lear are friendly and helpful, and profoundly knowledgeable. I bought four plants – a hearts-ease, which I will encourage to set seed, a purple loosestrife to grow beside the pond (bees and butterflies love it) a tree spinach – it is fully edible but we bought it because its leaves, a deep green splashed with magenta, are so pretty – and a tea tree. I’m gob-smacked at this – I never thought you could grow tea tree in Scotland, but you can. Margaret assures me that if you keep it in the greenhouse until it is about three years old, and about three feet high, it should be fine. Watch this space!

July 31, 2015
Half a Hundred Herbs Week 43 – Carnation

I have a few carnations at present, grown from a packet of mixed seeds. They are pink, coral scarlet and a white flecked with red. The scent is pleasant but not overwhelming, unlike a wonderful plant I had a few years ago – it was called the ‘clove scented carnation’, a rich burgundy colour that smelled fabulous – rich, deep and spicy. Carnations like drier soil and more warmth than they get here, but they don’t seem to mind. They are flowering their heads off just now, along with the chamomile, borage, marigolds, meadowsweet and the first poppy, a deep and exciting genuine blood red.

It seems almost wasteful to use carnations as herbs, but they have a long history of being used for flavouring drinks, decorating salads and as candied petals for cakes. You could also make a conserve by bashing up the petals with three times their weight in honey ‘to comfort the heart’, but it is now regarded as obsolete in medical terms.

In my house they are cut flowers. I don’t care how cheap they are (though I do care that in some countries they are grown in conditions where those who grow and pick them can be severely harmed by excessive pesticides), they are elegant and colourful, and they last for ages in water. What they won’t do, however, is keep their scent when they are dried. If you include them in pot pourris, which you can, if you dry them in silica or silver sand, it has to be for the freshness of their colour and they way they hold their shape. They will smell of nothing at all.

Incidentally, ‘carnation’ (which is derived from the Latin carnis – ‘flesh’) is the old word for what we now call pink. Pinks are called after the jagged edges of their petals, and the colour is called after the flower.

July 24, 2015

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