Pinterest Garden Inspired Christmas Decor!

When it comes to decorating, the garden is my favorite inspiration.  I love the diversity of colors...from earth tones to vibrant that the garden offers.  The garden also offers a huge variety of textures and shapes as well.  

Scanning Christmas Garden Decoration Ideas on Pinterest yielded some really fun ideas for your garden this year.  And...if you don't actually make them, the creativity they display is worth the look.

What's perfect for the kitchen this season?  How about putting together a small edible wreath made up of herbs from the garden?  Make it up a few days before gift giving and it's ready to use.  Or you can give it to them at any time and allow it to dry.  This wreath has bay leaves, sage, thyme and blooming oregano.  This is sure to please the savviest of cooks!

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I love this beautiful Moss wreath for Christmas.  The colors, the textures and the square shape make it a show stopper.  What reindeer wouldn't want to visit this house?  Click on the caption under the photo for directions on how to make your own.

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Simple is always nice.  This rustic garland made with dried orange slices and twine would look great on any mantel or Christmas tree.  Make your own or buy them at a craft store for an instant garden look inside!

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Even the most craft-challenged person can put holly berry sprigs under a wine glass with some tea lights on top.  This is a beautiful table top decoration for a special Christmas meal or use a flame-less tea light to use all season long.  A great way to use those crystal wine glasses tucked away in the cabinet. 

Have pinecones?  Gild them with a quick spray of white paint and hang them from a rustic chandelier for a super outdoorsy, nature inspired holiday decoration!  This one is simplicity at its best!

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No need to put away those garden shepherd hooks this year!  Decorate them up with your own version of Christmas cheer!  Check out the link below the photo for step by step instructions from the Love Gone Wild blog.

I couldn't resist this photo because it's just so clever!  Made up of driftwood, this gardener has Christmas cheer all year long with this rustic branch tree.  It adds texture and character to the garden and I bet the birds like it too!

What's your favorite garden inspired Christmas decoration?

Blessings!


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Summer's #1 Plant Remedy for Cuts and Scrapes

Summer seems to be the season for cuts and scrapes as the weather causes us all to spend more time outdoors.  Between gardening, swimming, and all kinds of sports and camping - these small injuries are bound to occur.

That's where this herbal remedy comes in for these minor problems.  This plant is abundant, free and effective...my favorite combination for herbal cures.  You don't have to order it or do any special prep (in the summer) as it's most likely underfoot in most grassy locations.

What it is you ask?  It's the humble plant, "Plantain" or officially known as "Plantago Major" or "Plantago Lanceolata."  I'll be focusing on the first variety as it's very easily found in rural, suburban and even urban neighborhoods.  

 

The flower of Plantain. Its flowers and seeds feed butterflies and even birds.

My first introduction to this amazing plant was from my mom.  Years ago she told me how when she was just a girl, had gotten a huge gash in her big toe from a hatchet that had fallen on it.  Now, this was in the depression and years before antibiotics were discovered. My grandmother found some plantain leaves, made a poultice from them and applied them to the carefully washed gash.  It took a few applications of this plant but the fairly deep wound healed beautifully and with only a minor scar.  

My mom wasn't into plants or herbs at all but she remembered the story and the plant and showed me what it looked like.  I was so intrigued by her memory and tucked it away into my memory until I had a chance to use it myself.  

Plantain thrives in dry poor soils.

That chance came some time later when I was changing out a storm window for the screen and the window fell heavily against my finger and gave it a nasty cut.  It was summer and my mom's story came back into my head, so I quickly located some leaves of the plant and made a poultice (where you mash the clean leaves of the plant by crushing and bruising them) and placed it on the gash with a bandage to keep it in place.  I did this a few times over the next few days and my cut not only healed beautifully, but with no scar as well.  

I was impressed.  Since then I have used it several times for cuts, bruises and scrapes.  I clean the area and place a poultice of mashed leaves on the area and then bandage to keep the leaves in place.  I've even just wrapped leaves around the wound area and secured with masking tape if I couldn't find a band-aid...worked like a charm.

It loves the edges of roadsides and its leaves are resilient to foot traffic.

Europeans understood its value enough to bring it to the New World when they settled here. 

"Plantain was brought to the US and also to New Zealand by European settlers who valued it for it's culinary and medicinal properties. The settlers seemed to leave the plant wherever they went, thus earning it the name "White Man's Foot' or "Englishman's Foot" by the natives of both countries." 1

Some interesting facts about this plant are as follows...
"Plantain is very high in beta carotene (A) and calcium. It also provides ascorbic acid (C), and vitamin K. Among the more notable chemicals found in plantain are allantion, apigenin, aucubin, baicalein, linoleic acid, oleanolic acid, sorbitol, and tannin. Together these constituents are thought to give plantain mild anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial, antihemorrhagic, and expectorant actions. Acubin has been reported in the Journal Of Toxicology as a powerful anti-toxin. Allantoin has been proved to promote wound healing, speed up cell regeneration, and have skin-softening effects."1 

It also is very edible and reputed to be good for the lungs as this modern study indicates...

"Medicinally, plantain is astringent, demulcent, emollient, cooling, vulnerary, expectorant, antimicrobial, antiviral, antitoxin, and diuretic. Plantain is approved by the German Commission E (a sort of German "FDA" that studies and regulates herbs and herbal uses) for internal use to ease coughs and mucous membrane irritation associated with upper respiratory tract infections as well as topical use for skin inflammations. Two Bulgarian clinical trials have suggested that plantain may be effective in the treatment of chronic bronchitis."1

The leaves of this plant are highly medicinal. Try to locate leaves away from roadsides and areas where it could be sprayed. 

Plantain can be found along the edges of trails, paths, rocky areas and many times in sidewalks and urban locations.  It's often found in lawns as well and the large rosette of leaves are easily located.  

I believe people's first hand stories and experiences lead to our discovery of plants as valuable remedies.  Sure, you can use antibiotic cream on your cuts, but learning first hand what these plants can do give you valuable personal experience with the plant and what it does.  If you're on a hike, camping or out somewhere with no first aid available, having plant knowledge can go a long way. 

This is also so valuable to pass along to your kids and other generations so this highly medicinal plant's practical use doesn't get lost.  When I was looking up information on Plantain, I found it listed on many sites as a weed and a plant to kill.  And true, while it does grow in places I don't always want it too, I never weed this plant without realizing its beneficial qualities.

Hope this helps and you'll be able to discover how helpful plantain is...blessings!

What have you used plantain for?





References:

1. http://www.prairielandherbs.com/plantain.htm 

More info can be found here as well: 

2.http://botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/p/placom43.html
3. http://www.susunweed.com/herbal_ezine/July05/healingwise.htm  


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Garden Update: Transplanting Tomatoes

It's hard to believe that April is gone and May is here.  With May comes more outside gardening work and that includes transplanting seedlings that have been started indoors and hardened off outside.  I started them using recycled materials that I wrote about in a previous post.  In mini-green houses, I set them near registers indoors to germinate and then took them outside, covered, on warmer sunny days to harden off.  The method worked out great as it allowed me to get them started inside but used the sun outside instead of sun lamps or placed on the windowsills.

 This method also caused the plants to become hardier and sturdier than they would be if completely raised inside.  Even though these little seedlings leaves are a bit battered from being outside in the elements, their new leaves will be more than ready to do the job.  

You will know it's time to transplant once the second set or "true" set of leaves start to appear.  When these leaves appear, the plants put out a long tap root and you'll want to transplant before that happens to make the it less stressful for the tomatoes. 

I decided to use some small plastic cups (8 oz size) that I had left over to use as the new tomato plant containers.  These would be perfect for the job.  However, drainage is vital for each new plant so I needed a fast way to put in drainage holes.  Here's a photo tutorial on how to easily do this.  I found this on another garden bloggers site.  A great idea I have to say...

With all the drainage holes in place in each cup, I went on to put drainage holes in my mini-greenhouse containers too.  Then filling each cup with planting mix, I wet the soil thoroughly and went to hang some clothes out on the line while the soil-less mix absorbed the water.  I like to give it some time to settle in before planting the new seedlings.

To actually transplant the seedlings, I used a plastic fork to gently loosen the soil around the plant holding the plant by its leaves (never the stem.)  Once it was loosened, I was able to dislodge it from the soil and place it in its new home.

Because tomatoes are a vine, you can bury the stem as deep as you want.  It will form roots along the stem and become stronger as it grows.  These plants got a bit "leggy" from a lack of light inside, but transplanting them deeper solves this problem.

And there you have it...25 plants all relocated into new homes; larger pots...or in this case - cups.  I'll just recycle the cups when they're finished too.  I will probably transplant the tomatoes one more time to larger pots before putting in the garden in late May or earliest June.  Now that they are in a bigger pot, they'll take off with this round of warm weather we're expecting to have around here.  To give them extra warmth, I'll cover them with their greenhouse lids at night to help keep the temps stable and to give them the best start.  Tomatoes like warm weather.

Tomatoes done for now...peppers are next!!  Looking forward to a great garden this year.  Hope yours is too....Blessings!

What are you doing in the garden right now??



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