Ladybird = Good Bug Scale Insect = Bad Bug The idea of 'Companion Planting' is familiar to most people these days, we know that planting Basil in with our tomatoes can improve their flavour and planting French Marigolds (Tagete patula) will deter whitefly from our toms. Using herbal medicine to treat people and even animals is something that is widely accepted and practised in our historical past and currently, but using plant based medicine to cure plants seems to be something that isn't so well known. My latest Garden News article focuses on using herbs as first aid for the ..read more

If you're reading this... Hi There! But I suspect that I will be talking to myself for a little while, I don't mind, I'm kind of used to it, its when I start answering myself back that I will start to worry ? There has been a fair few years that I lost my herbal passion and even my love of gardening and growing. Bad experiences in several areas of herbal life left me disillusioned and I lost my herbal mojo, I learnt a few valuable lessons in the gap years, and whilst I found my herbal self again I found other things to occupy myself. A very good friend advised me to stop trying to force mysel ..read more

Maid Marion Rose © Debs Cook In part 1 of Six Centuries of Rose Recipes and Remedies I looked at rose remedies and recipes from the 16th through to the 18th centuries, and as I said at the end of that post, today I'm looking at the 19th century through to present day 21st century recipes from two of my favourite herbalists and authors. Roses have played their part in the Middle East and Europe on a culinary and medicinal level for centuries, they originated in Persia, where an extensive rose-water trade began as long ago as the 8th century. The romance of the rose is illustrated in ..read more

William Turner Garden, September 2009 © Debs Cook As I've mentioned before some of my posts have been moved over from my old blog and I'm taking the opportunity to update them with new information, e.g. garden closures where applicable, changes to the layouts, plus any additional facts I've come across since my original visit and to add more photos where possible. This post refers to a visit I made to the garden in Northumberland back in September 2009. Whilst there we also visited the Chester Walled Garden in Hexham, I never wrote about that visit and its now sadly been closed down ..read more

Rose 'Wild Eve' © Debs Cook I have a very, very soft and fragrant spot for roses, their heady fragrance, vibrant colours and their silk or sometimes velvet like textures have captivated me since I was a young girl, but the roses have to be fragrant to for me or they are pointless, roses delight the senses with their aroma. In the garden I have many roses, less now than I used to have, and as the garden is being redesigned there is scope to add more, and you can bet that whichever ones I do plant will be fragrant. The first documented medicinal use of the rose occurred in Theophrastu ..read more

Rosemary (Salvia rosmarinus syn. Rosmarinus officinalis) © Debs Cook As some of you know I've been on a bit of a herbal sabbatical, so this little snippet of news escaped me until yesterday, I'm sharing it in the event that it may have escaped others as well. Rosemary has been known by the Latin name of Rosmarinus officinalis since Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus published his 'Species Plantarum' in 1753, which is when the international system of naming plants established by Linnaeus began. Back then Sage was in the genus Salvia and Rosemary was in the genus Rosmarinus because both pl ..read more

Hartington, Derbyshire © Debs Cook Out with Simon yesterday for a lovely walk along the Hartington stretch of the Tissington Trail, and we hadn't gone very far when Simon started swatting and flaying his arms about trying to deter some flying beastie from eating him. Luckily I was carrying some of my trusty home made Bug Busting Spray (recipe at end of this post) with me. Its one of those things I always carry in my bag in the warmer months of the year. A couple of squirts of the spray and he was no longer worried about the flying beasts that were troubling him moments before, after ..read more

My stepson has grown in to a fine young man, he's now married with a young family, which now makes me a Nanna, I refuse to be a Grandma that would make me old(er) lol! When they were younger my nephews and niece would come to stay occasionally (the two youngest still do) and whilst they were here, I would share my love of all things herbal with them. I enjoyed doing this and it seems they loved it to, after one stay several years ago my niece got taken around the school garden and she correctly identified the herb chives growing in their garden and proudly told the teacher all the things you ..read more

Elecampane Flowers © Debs Cook I'm patiently waiting for this perennial beauty to flower in my garden and whilst I do I thought I'd write a little about its use through the ages. Elecampane (Inula helenium) is said to get the Helenium part of its name to honour Helen of Troy, the Ancient Greeks believed that it was from her tears that the first elecampane plants sprang. It is an herbaceous, perennial plant, native to central and northern Europe and north-west Asia, now found growing in North America which grows to a height of 1.5 metres. It has an erect, stout, furrowed stem, which b ..read more

Mint and Lavender two perennial favourites. I often get asked what herbs I would recommend for someone new to herb gardening or for someone with a small garden? Before I recommend any herbs I always ask, ‘what do you want to do with them?’ I get blank looks sometimes because people haven’t fully decided what they want to do with the herbs other than grow them; they may cook with them, use them in crafts or have a go at making their own beauty treatments, some may even wish to make some simple home remedies with the herbs they grow, but if they haven’t found their ‘herbal feet’, advis ..read more