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The Full Flavour of the February Garden

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 21:41:00 +0000

February’s a favourite time of year for gardeners. Those without the green fingered bug don’t understand the rush that the first daffodils bring, or the excited anticipation of spring that seems only a snippet away.

After some well-deserved time off gardeners around the country are ready to venture out again, armed with plans and visions for making this year the best gardening twelve months yet.

There’s plenty to do in the February garden, and if you want to make sure you’re always on top of jobs it’s best to start now. Preparation is the key to an enjoyable season and makes sure that you’re ready when the growing season takes off.

The Herb Garden

Now is the time to sow parsley, as we’ve been afforded with an exceptionally mild winter a lot of parsley will still be alive, however these will become quite straggly as the season wears on, so new batches will ensure you receive the full flavour for your cooking.

Herbs grow best in still air, so this year consider planting near hedges or shelter. Even annual sunflowers can give enough shelter whilst adding a touch of colour to the herb patch.

Mint can be propagated now, potted for gifts or separated by the runners at the roots to plant elsewhere. Although it may seem dormant in February remember that mint easily takes over and so use a pot in the ground or a liner around the roots.

The Vegetable Garden

Early peas can now be sown outdoors, and they will thrive as soon as the weather is warm enough, Feltham firsts are a favourite amongst vegetable growers for their pretty white flowers and succulent pods.

For early potatoes now is the time to buy the tubers. Although many suggest leaving in a dark space for them to chit, recent studies have shown that this leads the sprouts to become straggly and weak as they naturally stretch searching for light. Although it may take longer, place them where they have good access sunlight and as soon as the chits are an inch long plant in the desired spot for an early crop.

The Flower Garden

Lilies can be planed for summer colour now, as well as roses as long as the ground isn’t frozen. Carnations, Pinks and Primulas can be sown under glass whilst irises will thrive with the help of a cloche.

Alpines should be examined for any frost damage as the cold weather can loosen their soil, simply pat around the base and replace any gaps with compost or gravel to ensure they grow bigger and better this year.

Many climbers are now available to buy and these will stay dormant until the first flushes of spring. Virginia creepers are now the climber to choice with Ivy seeming to be old fashioned. The advantages of the creeper however mean that as they climb they will not penetrate pointing unlike the Ivy; they will also afford you a wonderful display of ruby red foliage in the autumn.

See a great range of garden plants for sale here.

The Lavenderworld Landscape Photography Competition

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 18:51:00 +0000

If you are adept at capturing naturally beautiful scenes or landscapes on your digital camera, then enter our Landscape photography competition.

Prizes:

1st Place: £500 of Photographic Equipment of your choice!

2nd Place: £300 of Photographic Equipment of your choice!

3rd Place: £200 of Photographic Equipment of your choice!

3 top photographers from the UK and USA including Nicholas Goodden will judge the best entries and award prizes of photographic equipment to those in 1st,2nd and 3rd place giving your passion a boost, and gaining you recognition for your photography prowess.

All photos must be less than 2 years old. Settings can be urban, wild or remote in a choice of colour or monochrome. We are accepting entries from around the world.

See bottom of page for competition rules. If you have any questions then please do contact us.

[photocompetitionform]

Competition Rules

The competition is for digital images only and entries are to submitted via the form above as high res JPEGS.
You may only enter 1 image.
Images can be colour or monochrome.
Your image must be no more than 2 years old.
The competition is open to amateur photographers only.
The competition closes for entries on 29/02/2012 The images will then be passed onto the judges and the winner will be announced on the 07/03/2012.
For full terms and conditions click here.

January Jobs for Gardeners

Tue, 03 Jan 2012 17:01:00 +0000

January Jobs for Gardeners

Although it seems like every year the same jobs are to be done in the garden month by month, this year with a very mild winter almost behind us, January jobs are proving to be a little bit different.

Even in the North some rose bushes that have been left to grow are still sporting beautiful blooms, whereas the daffodils are already poking their heads through the soil months ahead of Mother’s Day.

Of course, the worst of winter may yet be to come but as the days grow longer it seems that some weeds are here to stay. As lovely as it has been to be able to garden in the sparse daylight hours, as gardeners we know that as soon as spring does arrive the weeding is going to be relentless.

Now is an ideal time to either invest in some weed control fabric or find another way to keep these weeds at bay. Unpredictable weather means that we cannot guarantee a few dry days to use weed killer whilst the winds may blow this potent liquid onto our most prized plants.

A sustainable way to win the war against weeds is to use old bags from compost or animal feed. Slightly over lapping them at the sides, pin down with pegs and poke holes through where you wish the plants to grow.

Then cover with chippings, slate or pebbles leaving visitors none the wiser to the economic trick.

With the weather it has been difficult to know what to prune and when, taking out the secateurs, we’ve noticed on closer examination that many bushes that would usually be in the frozen slumber, are wide awake and still growing. However now is the time to prune, as if the weather becomes any warmer the next chance a gardener will have to safely trim any bush will be in ten months’ time.

Make the most of the trimming of rosemary and sage plants. Hang upside down in the shed to give freshly dried herbs all year. Even the parsley is hanging on tight and still creating a lovely frilly border around our vegetable patches without showing signs of going to seed.

Freezing herbs also works well; there are now frozen herbs to buy on the market however nothing can be fresher than your own, from paddock to utility room to plate!

The mild winter has also made sure the moss stays exactly where it is, and with the culmination of rain and sleet this makes for some very slippy and dangerous ground. Investing in a good power washer or even a stiff bristled brush will remove most of the moss and surrounding algae and leave your paths risk free.

Hanging baskets can now be made up with bulbs and aubrietia however resist the urge to buy lobelia and petunias regardless of the frost free nights, as we don’t know exactly what’s round the corner!

Discover a wide variety of garden plants here.

Pickling with Herbs

Sat, 17 Dec 2011 19:19:00 +0000

Pickling with Herbs

The art of pickling is easy and once the knack is learned almost everything from the veggie patch can be pickled to either prolong its life or give away as presents in a hamper at Christmas time.

There are many vegetables that can be pickled along with a few larder store favourites, however choosing the right herbs to add flavour is a must for a gorgeous display and a pretty pickling jar that will be welcomed by any family member.

Eggs

Most people like a pickled egg, and these can be used as great sides on a boxing day buffet. Hard boil the eggs first and then leave to cool in the fridge. Eggs from your own chickens can make an especially good gift that is entirely homemade. Bantam eggs are beautiful and will not be found in any supermarket, whereas duck eggs are popular as pickled in the Philippines.

Using a big jar (ironically one that is used for pickled eggs from the supermarket will do, or for a few extra pennies, buy sterilized jars from the internet), half fill with the pickling vinegar. This should be transparent in colour.

Add the eggs one by one, creating an egg wall inside the jar. Don’t overfill as this may mean not all eggs pickle at the same time. Add a few coloured, pink or green, peppercorns to the vinegar, and then poke in some stalks of dill.

Leave for up to a month before giving to friends to enjoy!

Beetroot

Pickled beetroot is a firm favourite amongst any table of cold meats, making it the perfect side for Boxing Day leftover turkey and ham. Using beetroot from the veggie patch will not only give it a homemade feel, it will also taste much better. With the varieties of beetroot on offer, yellow beetroot can be used also, giving a unique twist to an age old condiment.

Boil the beetroot with the leaves on poking out of the pan. This helps keep all the dye contained as once the leaves are cut the beetroot will bleed losing some of its glorious colour and making a mess of the kitchen.

Using paper towel once cool enough to handle let the skins be rubbed off gently, then cool completely before adding to the jar with pickling vinegar.

Beetroot can be pickled whole, if baby beetroot, or in slices for larger varieties.

Martina Mercer recommends sprigs of rosemary for red beetroot pushed close up against the side of the jar so their decorative effect is not lost in the red liquid.

Other Pickling Partners

For yellow beetroot, lemon or orange thyme works very well and gives a subtle flavour throughout the vinegar that is lost in supermarket brands.

Other vegetables that can be pickled from the vegetable patch include:

Onions
Pea Asparagus
Corn
Tomatoes
Cabbage

See our garden plants page to discover more tips.

The Winter Garden Tool Box

Fri, 25 Nov 2011 10:40:00 +0000

With winter approaching many gardeners think they should be hanging up their tools, lubricating them and protecting them in a bid to put them to sleep for the winter and not bring them out until the snowdrops appear in the first flushes of spring.

However, there are still quite a few jobs that the tools may have to endure, and if this year’s winter is on a par to the last two, the garden toolbox is one staple the home is unable to live without.

There are essentials that should be in every gardener’s toolbox, and these will become multi-functional as the temperatures drop and fingers become cold.

What every gardener should own

The spade is the staple, although it won’t fit in a box, it will be one item that is used the most this winter. Even those who despise getting their hands dirty will nip to the nearest DIY store to buy a shiny new shovel that will sit in the boot of the car to help them out of a pickle. The spade will crack ice on the pond, so the fish don’t freeze and the ducks can swim, it will dig the car from the drive and it will act as a replacement snow shovel for paths and walkways alike.

Emergency break out!

The loppers should have had their end of season treatment by now, taking care of them is essential for an easy ride next year, however, there are still some uses over the winter with high winds and gale force rain, many hazards can be avoided with the use of some sharp loppers that can be relied upon in any emergency. The loppers should be treated with lubrication oil at the end of the season, as not only will this ensure all hinges and joints work perfectly and don’t seize over winter, it will also act as a barrier allowing moisture to fall off and reducing the risk of rust.

With extreme weather conditions branches can fall on wires, or lean dangerously close to gutters and pipes, the loppers will make short work of this, and still in this season, a little foresight employed will ensure that this problem is never encountered. All bushes and trees should be trimmed to be at least two metres from cables and wires, ensuring any emergency is insignificant and very short lived.

Carefully does it!

Many electric shocks have occurred with homeowners trying to remove fallen branches from power lines themselves.

Duct tape is also another winter essential, although not often associated with gardening, duct tape will temporarily fix polytunnels, prolong the life of cracked glass in greenhouses and hold gutters to walls until the weather improves and a homeowner can venture out to fix it. Not only this, it works marvellously for stabilizing trees to stakes, although a little of an eyesore it’s strength cannot be denied and is constantly relied upon by many a winter gardener.

Still thinking about garden plants?

Jobs to do in a Winter Garden

Tue, 15 Nov 2011 14:45:00 +0000

You may think there’s not much to do over winter however you are quite wrong, the garden with its blanket of leaves and sleeping shrubbery still needs your care and attention, and if you’re hoping to get off to a stress free start in the spring, it’s a good idea to add a little organization to proceedings too.

Take a Good Look at the Garden Shed

The Garden shed, unless you’ve had the time to clean all tools after use, and store everything neatly, will probably be looking like a bomb’s hit it right about now. Do you have plant pots with splits in them scattered in a corner just in case? Or a shovel neatly tidied away and hanging neatly on a wall but caked in mud? Now is the time to organize your shed, you’ll be soon needing the space for storing your summer outdoor furniture too, so get busy!

Make Good Use of Space

Shelving in a garden shed is a priority, you’ll be amazed how may items you can fit on a shelf, and how much floor space it creates. The great aspect is you don’t have to be a DIY expert, as even shabby shelves will tidy up the weed killer, fertilizer and compost, leaving your shed floor clutter free.

Hook, Hook and Away!

Hooks in walls, roofs, ceilings, on the back of doors, or even just rusty old nails will keep all of your tools off the floor. You don’t have to be OCD and draw around every tool, (although you’re welcome to if you really want), but having a line of hedge trimmers, the rake, hoe and hanging spades by their handles, will not only make them much easier to find it will also ensure any moisture drips off too, minimizing the risk of rust over winter.

Buff it up!

Your tools could do with a clean now, and if they have mud or soil on them, it’s best to clear them of everything before storing. Keeping them dirty will attract rust and rot, making for a very expensive spring. Once hosed down, dry thoroughly, and then add a little lubricant such as linseed oil to act as a waterproof barrier keeping moisture in the air at bay.

Keep Sharp!

All tools could do with a good sharpening now, when the sun pops out and the frost begins to thaw in 2012 you will not want to waste the daylight sharpening up blunt tools. A sand block covered in glass paper is ideal for shears and loppers, whilst some glass paper will work great on fiddly smaller cutters such as secateurs. Make sure you lubricate all edges with a good lubricant, and also the joints, so they don’t seize up over winter.If you do find your tools are already rusty, all is not lost; there are a host of good products on the market that will bring your tools back to shining perfection with a little tender loving care.

Once all this is done then you are ready to start thinking about your garden plants for next year.

Nurture your November Nature!

Tue, 25 Oct 2011 00:00:00 +0100

As we felt the first flushes of frost this week, many of us are groaning as our Indian summer has finally come to an end and weeks of icy roads, grit and chilblains are upon us. However, it’s not all doom and gloom as although the roads maybe full of the white stuff, our gardens an still bring us oodles of pleasure providing we wrap up warm and take a steaming mug of cocoa with us!

There’s a reason the garden centres are open all year round, aside from Christmas and New-year, garden centres will brave the cold understanding that although the summer horticulturists among us may have lost a little interest, the more dedicated of green fingered folk will still be coveting their weekly fix in their greenhouses.

No rest for the wicked!

With Halloween becoming a memory, there are still a myriad of jobs to do in the November garden, and donning your best gloves, you can make sure your borders bear flowers all winter long. Now is the time to finish off planting your bulbs, for that spectacular spring display. Plant fruit trees in mild weather for fruity delights next harvest, and take advantage of the disco heathers on offer by giving your dark garden some much needed fluorescent light.

Pull up, protect and Store

It’s also the best time of year for removing dahlias and gladioli. If shrivelled, keep dahlia bulbs in tepid water overnight before storing for the winter. Gladioli bulbs will dry nicely in a shed, and be protected from frosts ready to grow in the spring.

Rejuvenate those Roses

Be relentless with rose bushes in November, a good pruning is necessary for beautiful blooms in April and May. Plant roses bought from garden centres, and soak up the labels and images as you imagine your rose garden.

In the Pink!

Carnations and pinks will plant easily in November, as will cyclamen giving great colour. Be careful not to over water as these plants hate a wet bed!

Build it!

Alpines really are a treat this time of year, and many flower soon after the snowdrops. Aubrietia gives wonderful displays and we’ve all felt that first flush of spring when we’ve seen the tiny purple flowers cascading down a neighbour’s wall. Saxifrage, although needing careful handling so as not to disturb the delicate roots will provide miniature pink pompoms on a bed of soft green foliage. If you’re looking for a little outdoor exercise now is the time to construct an alpine garden, with old rocks, soil, and compost, planting the alpines in cracks and crevices, ready for them to awaken in January and stay all the way throughout the year.

Ponds!

This is one job that is often forgotten, yet the trimming of oxygenating plants is a must if you’re not to have a slimy mess the next year. Leave the foliage of reeds and rushes though, as this will give the water some protection during the winter. Be prepared and place a floating log, or tennis ball in the pond in an attempt to stop it freezing over, and protect with a net if you don’t fancy raking out leaves all winter long!

You can find garden plants here.

Fill Your Garden with September Sunshine

Mon, 26 Sep 2011 00:00:00 +0100

As the night’s draw in and we sit on a darkened patio of an evening relishing the scents of the garden plants while the cooler breeze forces the leaves from the trees, we’re quite melancholy thinking of a season ending and our beautiful annuals making their last show.

However, although spring came early this year meaning flowers have died off a little prematurely, there are many ways we can extend the season, and with the help of a heavy knitted jumper and some fingerless mittens we can carry on appreciating our gardens for months to come yet.

A popular pastime around this time of year is choosing from the cosmic collection of bulbs on offer, and as we plant them three inches deep into soil that is still frost free we envisage the generous parade of tulips and daffodils that will greet us as our gardens awaken after their sleep, yet that’s not all, for full winter colour there are plants that will flower now and ensure colour even in the coldest of weather, giving you the feel of a fresh spring morning come rain or shine.

Dogwood is dazzling, and whilst it is adorned with green leaves in summer, as these fall, the bright bloodshot stalks stand stunningly against any background, a definite eye catcher and a must for all year round vibrancy.

Rudbeckia adds focus to any autumn plot, in a variety of shades it complements the changing seasons, giving strong flower heads that stand up to the increasing winds, and as it rises high it is flawless at the back of a border.

Anemones first imported from Holland have become a classic English garden favourite, with their long green stems, bright white petals, and eyes that seem to follow you around the lawn, they will soon become your favourite flowery friend.

Grasses are a great way to add texture and life to a hibernating garden, and the right varieties will blow in the breeze creating a joyous symphony of nocturnal noises, a popular one this time of the year is stipa tennuisima, that never sits still as its feathery blooms comfort the senses with their constant swaying.

You may think the hydrangea is out of fashion, but there’s a reason this sturdy shrub has stood the test of time, garden centres will now sell blooming hydrangeas in colours ranging from sapphire to ruby, and the fragrant flowers will add intrigue and depth to any perimeter.

Verbena is not only wonderful for attracting wildlife to the garden, its long blossoming life ensures lollipops of colour, and you’ll benefit from a vase of fresh flowers up until Christmas day. I tend to dry the stems and flower heads, upside down from a beam in my office; they fill my working days with a lovely scent and when completely dry make a great pot pourri or crafted gift for a loved one.

This is just a small sample of how you can extend your September garden, yet with all the advice in the world, nothing beats donning that raincoat and taking a walk around your local garden centre to see what they have on offer!

To Plug or Not to Plug? â That is the Question!

Sun, 18 Sep 2011 00:00:00 +0100

Many people are scared of plug plants, the cost is higher than buying a packet of seeds and they seem so tiny and delicate, yet others have cottoned on to the many benefits plug plants offer.

As we drift into Autumn and our gardens turn into deep shades of orange gold and red, we’re already thinking of the spring that will surely follow winter, and as the plugs adorn the garden centre shelves promising that spot of colour before you’ve even had a chance to open your lobelia seeds, thousands of us are snapping them up ready to create our instant garden.

This is where plugs rule, the advantages are endless, yet for the gardener impatient for another season to begin, plugs satisfy all cravings, whilst having the benefit of being sown, germinated and hardened off ready for you to plop into your desired spot.

That’s not all!

We all know the hazards of planting seeds direct, there’s always a little trepidation as you wait for seedlings to grow in the border, and as you convince yourself that a garden full of poppies, nicotina, and foxglove can’t be that easy, you invariably remove a few of the young ones certain they’re a dreaded weed! Plugs take the pondering from the weed plucking, already they are identifiable and easy to distinguish from a dandelion meaning you’ll leave well alone and a spectrum of colour will be yours in no time.

Anything else?

Oh yes. You may have noticed that Spring came early this year, the daffodils were dying off by mother’s day and the aubrietia seemed to grace our walls as soon as we’d finished singing Auld Lang Sine, with a plethora of plug plants you could have an early garden being the envy of your neighbours, and reaping the rewards again and again.

Great News for the Veggie Patch

Indeed, as plugs are made for flowers, they’re also available for fruit and veg, which is fabulous for strawberries in particular. Starting these early, you’ll not only be sucking strawberries before Wimbledon wings its way into our living rooms, you’ll also benefit from a second crop. How greedy are we?

Which brings us on to this season!

There’s a whole range of perennials and vegetables that can be sown now ready for a display or harvest as the nights begin to get lighter, and plug plants are the path to success. As our harvest is barely over, we’ve all been busy bees in our gardens, and had a mountain of work as we kept on top of the mowing of the grass, the blanching of the vegetables and the gathering of seeds and splitting of plants for our borders. Plugs around now will establish well before a frost, giving you a helping hand and leaving you safe in the knowledge that your Christmas veggies are DONE!

Be sure to check in again this week for tips on how best to treat your plugs!

Blog Post by Martina Mercer.

Nature's Medicine Chest

Wed, 08 Jun 2011 00:00:00 +0100

Perhaps people in general are still a little sceptical about Herbal Medicine, picturing it as something which Monks used to practice in Monasteries, thinking of it as an art belonging in the past – a belief which lasts because it is, of course, partly true. That was when Traditional Remedies were known to everyone, being the only remedies.

And maybe this is why it does not surprise most of us that the Chelsea Physic Garden is only a short distance from The Royal Hospital, originally a hospital intended for the “succour and relief of veterans broken by age and war”, now better known as the home of the Chelsea Pensioners. But which would you expect to have been established first? If you thought, perhaps, that the Garden was dug there to meet the Hospital’s demands for Medicinal Herbs, you’d be wrong.

The Garden was founded in 1673, as the Apothecaries' Garden, with the purpose of training apprentices in identifying plants. Its closeness to the river created a warmer microclimate allowing the survival of many non-native plants, and more importantly, to allow plants to survive harsh British winters. The river was also important as a link to other open spaces such as Putney Heath, which made it easier to move both plants and their collectors.

The Hospital was founded in 1682 by King Charles II and intended for the 'succour and relief of veterans broken by age and war'. Of course, it gains the same advantages of climate and accessibility, but there are lots of places along the Thames where such things can be found. One of the determining factors was the presence there already of the Apothecaries’ Garden, with its fresh medicines close by. Herbal Medicine itself was a key, powerful enough to establish one of our great institutions in a particular place. This is how recently the availability of herbs entirely determined the availability of remedies.

And, what is more, the present day section of the Chelsea Physic Garden called The Pharmaceutical Garden is a display of plants which yield therapeutic compounds of proven value in current medicinal practice and are in world-wide use today. Among its treasures are specimens of Filipendula ulmaria (Meadowsweet), the plant from which salicylic acid was first made in 1835, leading to the introduction of aspirin in 1899 - a fact by which sceptics of Herbal Medicine are frequently disconcerted, especially if they themselves are frequent takers of aspirin. Indeed, approximately one in every four of our current pharmaceutical medicines is plant-based, either directly or in the origins of our knowledge about how things work.

Indeed, when it comes to advancing our knowledge understanding of medical biochemistry, every new species we find brings us new understanding of biochemistry in the natural world, rather than simply in the laboratory. This is true whether the new species are found in Ocean depths or in the heights of Rain Forest canopies – or at mountain altitudes even greater.

And that, of course, is a Western – or ‘developed world’ perspective on it all, for it is still perfectly true even today that the majority of people in the developing world – that is to say, the great majority of people in the world altogether - get their medicine from the wild rather than from a GP.

It seems that traditional, natural medicines lapsed into disuse when pharmaceutical companies took over the business of medicine. This was understandable in as much as pharmaceutical products are more standardised (being mass produced) and therefore more reliable – but where do these pharmaceutical companies obtain the necessary knowledge for any product development or for new cures for previously untreatable conditions? They are now returning to older, more traditional remedies, and finding scientific explanations why they work– which then enables them to add guarantees of consistency and quality to the understanding of experience.

In the sequel to this blog, I will attempt to give specific examples of recently discovered scientific explanations of traditional knowledge.

Gardening for the Poor of Sight

Sat, 28 May 2011 00:00:00 +0100

Here’s something else which never occurred to me. If I ever thought about it at all, In my inimitably blinkered way, I only ever imagined blind people (even those whom I know personally) enjoying gardens made by someone else – as if they tap-tapped their way carefully along safely engineered paths, occasionally brushing plants with their white sticks to stimulate releases of scent and thereby enjoy the pleasure of identifying at least one of the shrubs or flowers growing around them.

I’m sorry about that: I only hope I know better now. Apart from anything else, of course, you don’t actually need a garden to be a gardener: an accumulation of window-boxes, plant-pots, half-barrels. In particular, there must be many of us who dedicate an almost enclosed area of our own garden to growing the herbs we hope to cook with.

And by their very nature, those herbs are best identified through their scents and their tastes (which makes me realize once more how close to each other those two senses are).

I’m afraid, even then, I conceived of this garden, whatever it consisted of, as being made for the poor of sight by someone able to see fully. What an arrogant assumption. I had forgotten just how much the sense of touch matters in gardening, along with all the others: because I didn’t notice I was using it, I assumed that no-one else used it either.

But how often do we, without thinking touch a plant to confirm our identification of it. We might be feeling for the texture of a leaf; we might be feeling for the strength of its fibres, or we might be rubbing leaves between thumb and forefinger before sniffing to check the exact scent or fragrance.

I have unwittingly drawn attention this before, when I explained the Bible’s name for Lavender: Spikenard. You can’t tell me that the spike part of that name occurred only from the way the plant looked. A Lavender floret feels spikey as well.

Try walking round a garden – yours or anyone else’s - with your eyes tight shut (or blindfolded, to stop you cheating. You will soon find there is much more to a plant than its colour. Given a careful choice of scents, a poorly sighted person can navigate gardens from place to place just as clearly and simply as I look for the colours of blooms. And that person almost certainly has the advantage over me when it comes to recognise the shapes of what is growing – the sizes, the outline shapes, the textures of (say) leaves are things which, until now, have by-passed my attention. Worse still, at most there will only be one or two trees which I can identify by their sounds, the ways in which their trunks and boughs creak in strong winds, or how a breeze sighs in their leaves. But could I reliably distinguish between two trees as different in their sounds as a willow and an aspen? Probably not, not even enough to know which is going to blow-down on me in a gale. I have got a lot to learn.

If my suggestions are worth anything after all this, may I suggest beginning with a herb garden in a container perhaps made from the two halves of a wooden barrel. I think I should aim for one half being filled with Lavenders, perhaps of subtly different varieties, to provide a ‘background’ touch and fragrance to everything else – perhaps, too, because Lavender plants are a relatively straightforward plant to propagate.

In the other half, I should try mint, parsley, sage, thyme, basil, dill – but those are purely the ones which I know I use. You or your ‘unseeing’ friend will have personal preferences: follow them.

Once you get to something larger, go for Lemongrass: I am intrigued by the idea of not needing lemons to add a lemon flavour.

So just for now, stop allowing your eyesight to dominate your other four senses: at least, use them all equally.

Written by David Hughes.

Literary Lavender 2

Sun, 15 May 2011 00:00:00 +0100

Though this flower seller’s ‘advert’ was collected in a book about London Life in 1912, it seems likely to date as far back as the time of Queen Elizabeth 1st as part of an ongoing oral tradition. Remember, almost all poetry everywhere belongs in this tradition of words passed from generation to generation:

⁷ here’s your sweet lavender
sixteen sprigs a penny
that you’ll find my ladies
will smell as sweet as any!

The tradition was evidently still strong in 1929 when Clark’s Flower Song Book included this:

⁸ Lavender, sweet lavender;
come and buy my lavender,
hide it in your trousseau, lady fair.
Let its flovely fragrance flow
Over your from head to toe,
lightening on your eyes, your cheek, your hair."

Though John Clare is himself a genuinely original, inventive poet of the countryside, his poems are steeped in the traditions of village life – traditions which included passing on messages in the language of flowers:

⁹ Pale primroses, too, at the old parlour end,
Have bloomed all the winter 'midst snows cold and dreary,
Where the lavender-cotton kept off the cold wind,
Now to shine in my valentine nosegay for Mary;
And appear in my verses all Summer, and be
A memento of fondness and friendship for thee.

It is the ‘pale primroses’ which signify love in this poem – but look at what has preserved the primroses through all the long, hard winter: lavender-scented cotton cloth to ward off the chills of the winter winds. Incidentally, Clare has a lovely way of rhyming dreary with Mary and end with wind – rhymes which are close but unexpected, just as Lavender belongs in the poem but is not quite doing what we expected.

William Shenstone in The School Mistress in 1742 again gives us an unexpected glimpse of Lavender, even in the lady’s classroom, in the perfume of her handkerchiefs – which she has woven herself, making linen from flax, and then scented by wrapping the newly created linen around bundles of dried lavender:

¹⁰…And lavender, whose spikes of azure bloom                           [spike – shape of flower]
shall be, ere-while, in arid bundles bound
to lurk amidst the labours of her loom,
and crown her kerchiefs with mickle rare perfume.                         [mickle - mighty or very]

Similarly, we may be sure that Miss Jekyll, writing in Home and Garden in 1900, is recording knowledge and beliefs which have persisted for centuries:

¹¹best among the good plants for hot, sandy soils
are the ever blessed lavender and rosemary,
delicious old garden bushes that one can hardly dissociate.

To see just how long our knowledge of Lavender has been recorded for posterity (and we can safely assume that the knowledge is older than writing itself) look at Turner’s Herbal (a guide to identifying and using different flowers and herbs) from as far ago as 1545:

¹²I judge that the flowers of lavender quilted in a cappe and dayly worn are good for all diseases of the head that come of a cold cause and that they comfort the braine very well.

We couldn’t put it better ourselves!

Literary Lavender

Thu, 12 May 2011 00:00:00 +0100

This is simply the first of what I hope will be many selection of quotations from writers – any writers – who mention Lavender, together with my brief comments on each.

Please, feel free to bring your own quotations to this: it is not by any means a definitive selection.

Such a selection must start with these words from deaf and blind Helen Keller, who once observed that people were surprised that she could enjoy nature.

¹ It is really they who are blind, for they have no idea how fair the flower is to the touch, nor do they appreciate its fragrance, which is the soul of the flower.”

Tom Robbins in Jitterbug Perfume 1984 gives another explanation of why it is that we love garden scents so much and with such poignancy:

² with immediacy and intensity, smell activates the memory, allowing our minds to travel freely in time."

John Seymour (an English naturalist born in 1914) is sensible in reminding us that not quite everything in the garden is lovely – indeed, that so often a garden’s beauty consists of enclosing and affecting the full range of our senses:

³How miraculous that growing on my own little plot of land are plants that can turn the dead soil into a hundred flavours as different as horseradish and thyme, smells ranging from stinkhorn to lavender

This letter, written on 14 January 1801 from novelist Jane Austen in Steventon, to her elder sister Cassandra at Godmersham: shows plainly how Lavender Water was – at one and the same time – something quite ordinary, and yet far enough out-of the-ordinary to be an occasional treat, perhaps in the way we would regard expensive ice-cream, savour or a malt Whisky as opposed to a blended Scotch.

⁴Martha left you her best Love; she will write to you herself in a short time; but trusting to my memory rather than her own, she has nevertheless desired me to ask you to purchase for her two bottles of Steele's Lavender Water when you are in Town."

Almost 20 years later John Keats wrote a long poem (look at the stanza numbers) called The Eve of St Agnes which describes the difficulties faced by a young couple whose families are deadly foes to each other. The legend is that a young girl might hope to see a vision of her loved one on the night of St Agnes’ Eve. Porphyro has made his way to Madeline’s bedchamber, with the connivance of an elderly, sympathetic maid-servant. She is rather like the Nurse in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet – and she too has provided all the props of food, drink and seductive scents. There he finds his girl…

⁵

And still she slept an azure-lidded sleep,

In blanched linen, smooth, and lavender’d,

While he from forth the closet brought a heap

Of candied apple, quince, and plum, and gourd;

With jellies soother than the creamy curd,

And lucent syrops, tinct with cinnamon;

Manna and dates, in argosy transferr’d

From Fez; and spiced dainties, every one,

From silken Samarcand to cedar’d Lebanon.

XXXI

These delicates he heap’d with glowing hand

On golden dishes and in baskets bright

Of wreathed silver: sumptuous they stand

In the retired quiet of the night,

Filling the chilly room with perfume light -

“And now, my love, my seraph fair, awake!

“Thou art my heaven, and I thine eremite:

“Open thine eyes, for meek St. Agnes’ sake…

“Or I shall drowse beside thee, so my soul doth ache.”

John Clare, writing at about the same time, describes here a scene less obviously intensely passionate, a scene of apparently ordinary herb-gathering from the herb-garden of a fairly ordinary village house:

⁶ … where they yet grow wild;

With marjoram knots, sweet-brier, and ribbon-grass,

And lavender, the choice of ev’ry lass,

And sprigs of lad’s-love—all familiar names,

Which every garden through the village claims.

These the maid gathers with a coy delight,

And ties them up, in readiness for night…

But look again at those two herbs which the maid gathers with most enthusiasm. The maid is gathering lavender for the household pillows so that everyone sleeps well – and so that everyone sleeps through her seduction of the boy for whom she also gathers lad’s-love (Southernwood).

I hope you have enjoyed these: there are more to come…

Lavender leaves things 'Spick and Span'

Tue, 10 May 2011 00:00:00 +0100

Now, this surprised me: In Singapore, as in London, there is an area called Lavender. Its north-east boundary is Lavender Street. Honest: check it out. In the 1800s, Lavender district was filled with vegetable farms owned by Chinese immigrants. Later, these immigrants began cultivating sugarcane and the area grew to consist of a mix of vegetable farms and sugarcane plantations. The name is surely an ironic usage: the area’s neighbours were constantly complaining about the district because of the stench ponging out from its fertilizers, its cow dung and its nearby processing plants. Anyone who has ever lived near one knows that a sugar factory’s sweetness soon sickens. Snidely and in jest, they called the place “Lavender”.

I’m mentioning all this because I am confident you will agree with this proposition: 21^st century a Singapore has turned itself into one of the most ‘spick and span’ cities in the world.

But what does ‘spick and span’ mean?

Part of the phrase seems to appear in an Old English Romance called The Lay of Havelock the Dane composed by an unknown author sometime between 1295 and 1310: Þe cook bigan of him to rewe, and bought him cloþes, al spannewe.

Even more strangely, the poem’s characters appear on the Town Seal of Grimsby dating from the early 13^th century. Back to the point: Thomas North’s translation of “Plutarch’s Lives” in 1579 (the source of much of Shakespeare’s inspiration), a description of knightly attire goes: They were all in goodly gilt armours, and brave purple cassocks apon them, spicke, and spanne newe.”

86 years later, the phrase had become both precise enough and commonplace enough for Samuel Pepys to write in his diary on the night of 15 November: My Lady Batten walk[ed] through the dirty lane with new spicke and span white shoes.

As you have read elsewhere in these blogs, I believe that ‘spicke’ often refers to a ‘spike’ of lavender; and I think it does so here. We know, for example, that the Pepys couple encouraged their London maids to clean their house’s wainscot with Lavender beeswax. Lady Batten’s shoes are sure to have been of leather; and in both Queen Elizabeth’s and Pepys’s times, Lavender oil was often used (as linseed oil might be now) for preservation and suppleness, and to give a surface quality to leather such as made cleaning it an easier task. ‘Span’ fits with this idea if it is used as a measure of quantity – say, a hand-span’s worth of oil to polish the leather.

So think about this, next time you praise someone for their ‘spick and span’ turnout, or the appearance of their house – or anything. Think of Lavender oil.

"Lavender Works..."

Fri, 06 May 2011 00:00:00 +0100

For a long time, it has been sufficient for us to believe that ”Lavender works” because other people tell us “it worked for us”; and because it feels natural to believe that something which smells so good and looks so good is likely to be doing some good. It’s a kind of faith.

But it’s not always enough: just for one example, phosgene (used as a poison gas against troops during WW1) smells of pear-drops. I remember grandfather banning those sweets from his house – and from my breath. The other trouble with this way of gathering evidence is that you rarely or never hear from the people killed by stuff, whatever it was.

Nor is it enough to say “Lavender is a natural cure”. Deadly Nightshade is natural too. Though it does have carefully judged medicinal uses, anyone trying an infusion of its essential oil would swiftly tell us the name is accurate – except Deadly Nightshade destroys the power of speech.

All of this adds up to a reason why Professor René-Maurice Gattefossé (1881-1950) became such an important figure in the 20^th century history of how and why we believe in the effectiveness of Lavender.

Gattefossé was born into one of France’s most important chemical and perfumery families. It still is – and it’s worth reading part of their website’s ^[2] introduction to the Business: Established in 1880, Gattefossé is a…Group which develops, manufactures and markets innovative products and application technologies...[ ]… the Group is an innovative leader in lipidic excipients and novel specialty ingredients. As oleochemistry ^[1]specialists we offer a range of functional lipid excipients.

By 1907 René-Maurice himself was working in a group to investigate and publish scientific studies of aromatic substances. This circumstance has been enough to explain the persistence of a myth that Gattefossé had a whole vat of Lavender oil open on his workbench into which he ‘accidentally’ plunged his arm after burning it – a ludicrous idea, as any chemist would know. What he did do was develop the visionary idea that studying the therapeutic use of essential oils of many plants could constitute an academic, scientific discipline in its own right. Indeed, the very word aromatherapy is one which he brought to writing, in his substantial book on the topic in 1937.

The story about his accident, he himself told in his book, (in translation) ^[3]

"The external application of small quantities of essences rapidly stops the spread of gangrenous sores. In my personal experience, after a laboratory explosion covered me with burning substances which I extinguished by rolling on a grassy lawn, both my hands were covered with a rapidly developing gas gangrene. Just one rinse with lavender essence stopped "the gasification of the tissue". This treatment was followed by profuse sweating, and healing began the next day (July 1910)."

Gas gangrene caused tens of thousands of amputations and deaths during WW1 even among the apparently lightly wounded. In these cases it seems to have been caused by a bacterium prevalent in the dreadfully polluted soils of the war. In Gattefossé’s case it is quite probable that he literally picked it up during his roll in the grass. However his burns became infected, he (or someone else: his statement does not say) applied the Lavender essential oil deliberately, believing it would work and proving that it did.

However, remember that Gattefossé had his accident more than 100 years ago, and medical knowledge has moved on. DO NOT USE HIS METHOD YOURSELF. http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Burns-and-scalds/Pages/Treatment.aspx is the place to go for the best available up-to-date advice on burns.

What matters is that Gattefossé had set the scientific study of aromatherapies going in the right direction. Less than 10 years later he was collaborating with a large number of doctors treating war wounds with Lavender and other essential oils, making sure that methods and results were properly documented, recorded, and co-ordinated; and the science (as well as the practice) of aromatherapy continues to develop in the ways he so strongly influenced.

[1] [Oleochemistry: the study of vegetable oils and animal oils and fats, and oleochemicals derived from these fats and oils or from petrochemical feedstocks through physico-chemical modifications or transformation. First used in the making of soaps, oleochemistry is now part of our daily lives where it is found in a wide variety of sectors like food, cosmetics, pharmaceutical and industrial.]

[2] http://www.gattefosse.com/

[3] Gattefossés Aromatherapy - The First Book on Aromatherapy
Author: René-Maurice Gattefossé
Publisher: C.W. Daniel Company
Copyright: 1993 (Translated from Original 1937 French Text)
ISBN: 0-85207-236-8

Cleopatra: the Lavender Twist in the Tail

Sun, 01 May 2011 00:00:00 +0100

There is common agreement that Lavender is a herb of Love and even seduction. For examples, see the blogs: Ladies - Lavender is the new "headache" posted on 28/02/2011, and Lavender For Lovers posted on 02/02/2011, attesting to the fact that Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, used Lavender to seduce (in sequence) Julius Caesar and Mark Antony - after Julius’s assassination by Brutus and Cassius.

Mark Antony became one of three senators chosen as a Triumvirate to govern Rome after the assassination, along with Julius Caesar’s adopted son Octavius and the nonentity Lepidus. Antony more or less betrayed the Roman state by indulging in foreign adventures rather than governing at home. Octavius Caesar determined to grasp power for himself rather than allow the Empire to fall between conflicting interests. His Navy annihilated the combined forces of Cleopatra and Antony at the battle of Actium.

If you want to follow the legendary twists and turns, watch Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra. The climax of the play comes after Antony’s suicide (which Cleopatra sees as an enormously brave act) and Octavius’s capture of Cleopatra herself. We know and she knows that Octavius plans to put Cleopatra on display in a Roman Circus as part of a Triumphal victory parade. She is determined to avoid this, with her own tragic gesture.

----------0----------

The next bit seems like I am dodging the point. Be patient.

Words of all sorts get mixed up through use and age. We used to have a word ‘napron’ (like napkin) but people said it and heard it carelessly, so now we have an ‘apron’. Take the English snake, the viper or adder. The word for it used to be ‘nadder’, from a Greek word for snake. The same sloppiness left us with ‘adders’. It was one of these which Cleopatra used for her suicide. She hid it in flowers, above a layer of figs. Shakespeare uses the word asp, another alternative label for the same species of snake.

Things start to come together again. The word ‘asp’ seems to come from the word ‘aspic’. This is a variety of Lavender, ‘Aspic Lavender’ (perhaps because it was used as flavour for what we know as ‘aspic jelly’). Lo and behold! The word ‘aspic’ is a careless blend of two words: ‘a spike’. A ‘spike’ is, of course, the Lavender flower. Remember the Biblical word ‘spikenard’ in the blog Lavender at Easter posted on 12/04/2011.

The Romans also believed the myth that Asps like to hide in Lavender bushes (probably a Lavender growers’ fiction to put the price up) so they would not approach it.

So here we have Cleopatra with arms full of Aspic Lavender concealing the Asp with which she will kill herself and so prevent herself becoming one of Octavius’s conquests, since she could not make him one of hers.

There is common agreement that Lavender is a herb of Love and even seduction. For examples, see the blogs: Ladies - Lavender is the new "headache" posted on 28/02/2011, and Lavender For Lovers posted on 02/02/2011, attesting to the fact that Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, used Lavender to seduce (in sequence) Julius Caesar and Mark Antony - after Julius’s assassination by Brutus and Cassius.

----------0----------

The next bit seems like I am dodging the point. Be patient.

The Romans also believed the myth that Asps like to hide in Lavender bushes (probably a Lavender growers’ fiction to put the price up) so they would not approach it.

How Lavender kept Grave Robbers alive

Thu, 21 Apr 2011 13:00:00 +0100

We study Lavender and the other plants of homeopathy and aromatherapy in recognisably Scientific, experimental ways these days, analysing their Biochemistry, assessing their efficacy, looking for their side-effects and assessing possible dangers.

If we go back to the mid-1700s however, the epidemics of Plague which had faded out of London were still decimating France. But Science itself was too new to be an effective tool of investigation. So investigations tended to be empirical rather than experimental – by which I mean, we look at what happens and make a guess about why! If we see that two things happen in a regular sequence, we tend to believe that the first event caused the second one. The idea of casual relationship rather than causal relationship had not yet developed.

And yet the process was just beginning. Harvey had formulated his ideas about the Circulation of Blood, Newton was thinking about Gravity, and so on.

And where this Biological Scientific progress was underway, especially for Human Medicine, bodies were needed, to be cut up to be investigated. So people snatched bodies from graveyards to supply the quacks and chirurgeons and almost-scientists.

Not surprisingly the greatest supply of bodies – and the times of least security around graveyards – came with epidemics of the Plague. If you dared to take the risk of digging around in a Plague Pit, there really was money to be made.

Toulouse holds an important strategic position in France. The River Garonne flowing through it had, strangely, two different purposes. It is – and certainly it was, before the metalling of roads – an important transport route. And at times of danger from Politics or Plagues, a big river is a useful barrier, stopping the spread of trouble. We do forget what impassable blocks rivers could be, before there were many bridges – and if people cannot cross them, nor can their infections.

There were four Toulouse Grave Robbers in particular who drew attention to themselves – mostly by not being dead. They were captured and sentenced to death. No-one could work out why they weren’t dead already. If there were any such thing as divine justice, they should be six-feet down already.

They were offered their lives in exchange for their secret. It turned out that they had been gathering Lavender, Rosemary, Thyme and Sage and steeping them intensely in vinegar.

They might have stumbled upon this ‘prophylactic’ just through the fact that the leather of gloves (and I imagine they wore gloves for work like this!) was generally made supple and strong by such Lavender Vinegar. Anyway, so far as they and their peers were concerned, it worked. They were given their lives. Everybody tried the same precautionary use of Lavender.

Of course, the next step was that the Provence authorities, in 1770, promptly recognised that they had growing on their doorstep at least one plant with a wealth of enormously beneficial attributes. So, like governments everywhere, they took control of Lavender – planting, cutting, processing, essential-oil extraction, selling - the lot…

And it still seems to work!

You Spoke, We Listened

Tue, 19 Apr 2011 08:59:00 +0100

A week or so ago we launched a competition giving you the chance to win £75 worth of Lavenderworld goodies by telling us what you thought of our website. (You can still enter it here)

We have been blown away by all the fantastic comments and we have already put in place some of your suggestions which we have outlined below:

1) Reviews of products by customers - this came up again and again so we have now added a comment section at the bottom of each product where you can add your views.

2) Shop by Price - Another popular suggestion and we have duly obliged. You can now find this feature on the left handside of each page.

3) Free Returns - We now offer free returns on all products. For more information click here.

Things we are still working on:

1) Product Zoom

2) Accept payment by Paypal.

Once again thank you for all your comments and I look forward to updating you soon with some more features we have added.

Sam

Lavender goes to the Dogs

Thu, 14 Apr 2011 11:29:00 +0100

Battersea was far enough to the west of the City of London to avoid the City’s pollution (the poor East-Enders got that) and is underlain by good growing soils: it became one of the gardens of the Great Wen (a disparaging nickname for London, coined in the 1820s by William Cobbett, a radical champion of rural England). In about 1800, more or less at the beginning of the industrial revolution, some 20 market gardeners farmed above 300 acres of land in the area. As well as growing pigs and asparagus, they cultivated Lavender, then coming into even greater demand for its fragrance and its aroma-therapeutic effects – famous enough for the most productive area to be called Lavender Hill.

London expanded even more rapidly while the 19th century went on. The coming of the Railways first brought the City and its necessary farms closer together, and then made possible all the financial industries and clerical occupations which rely upon commuters. People, on the whole, had less and less need for working dogs. The idea of ‘pets’ made people more and more sensitive to any cruelty to animals, especially focussing on those dogs abandoned by their owners, or handed in as being no-longer needed, or simply impossible to look-after.

In response, in 1860 Mrs Mary Teal founded the Battersea Dogs Home (taking in cats as well, since 1884). Many of the dogs accepted by the Home today will have never known good treatment. If they are to be re-homed, they must learn to stop turning every emotion into fear or anger. They must calm down.

Lavender has become a necessary element in these dogs’ rehabilitation: it is the most important of the scents fed as mist into kennel-blocks, through the air-conditioning three times a day.

It is also a major element of Gardens around the Home, where dogs are exercised: as well as the colour the fragrance of Lavender makes the walks more varied and exciting for them… which probably applies to children as well!

If you want to give your own dog (or yourself, for that matter) the same treat, help the Dogs Home by buying the oils of camomile, cappuccino and Lavender which work so well in Battersea – a place which is, quite literally, going back to its roots!

Lavender has become a necessary element in these dogs’ rehabilitation: it is the most important of the scents fed as mist into kennel-blocks, through the air-conditioning three times a day.

Lavender at Easter

Tue, 12 Apr 2011 16:42:00 +0100

Lavender used to be called ‘spikenard’, pre-dating ‘lavender’ linguistically as the Greeks predated the Romans in classical times. The ‘spike’ part of the word refers to the characteristic shape of spike-like lavender flower consisting of multiple, tiny purple florets on a slender, elegant stem. Such flowers or others of their family are found both cultivated and growing wild in many places in the east, from the valleys of Nepal, through Greece, on into the Mediterranean, and so to us with the Romans. It was in Greece that the ‘spike’ picked up the next part of its name, ‘nard’ from a Greek word meaning ‘Semitic’ which refers to a language grouping that includes old Himalayan tongues and Hebrew. So the Greeks understood that Hebrew speakers knew this plant which we call Lavender, and it is Lavender to which the Bible writers refer when they say ‘spikenard’.

The Bible mentions ‘spikenard’, Lavender or one of its essential oils at more than a few important moments, always as something precious and remarkable.

The Easter story contains the most important examples.

For quite a few nights in the last weeks before his death, Jesus seems to have stayed in the village of Bethany, which is where he had attended Lazarus and raised him from the dead.

John 12:

1Then Jesus six days before the passover came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, which had been dead, whom he raised from the dead.

2There they made him a supper; and Martha served: but Lazarus was one of them that sat at the table with him.

3Then took Mary a pound of ointment of spikenard (oil of lavender), very costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair: and the house was filled with the odour of the ointment.

4Then saith one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, which should betray him.

5Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor?

6This he said, not that he cared for the poor; but because he was a thief, and had the bag, and bare what was put therein.

7Then said Jesus, Let her alone: against the day of my burying hath she kept this.

8For the poor always ye have with you; but me ye have not always.

The oil Mary for the anointing might well have been worth a labourer’s annual wages. It is a sign that some extraordinarily important things are happening. Perhaps Mary had thought the spikenard should have anointed the corpse of her brother Lazarus – but he is alive, and so she uses it for Jesus in honour and thanks for her brother’s life. She does not yet know she is anointing the body of Jesus for His coming death.

Four days later, still in Bethany, but this time at the house of a man called Simon the Leper, the ceremony is repeated

Mark 14:

3And being in Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he sat at meat, there came a woman having an alabaster box of ointment of spikenard very precious; and she brake the box, and poured it on his head.

4And there were some that had indignation within themselves, and said, Why was this waste of the ointment made?

5For it might have been sold for more than three hundred pence, and have been given to the poor. And they murmured against her.

6And Jesus said, Let her alone; why trouble ye her? she hath wrought a good work on me.

7For ye have the poor with you always, and whensoever ye will ye may do them good: but me ye have not always.

8She hath done what she could: she is come aforehand to anoint my body to the burying.

9Verily I say unto you, Wheresoever this gospel shall be preached throughout the whole world, this also that she hath done shall be spoken of for a memorial of her.

What we suggested above is confirmed here: the anointing is a premonition of the anointing of Jesus after the Crucifixion – which, by this time, the more acute among the followers and the disciples were beginning to understand was imminent.

The climactic moment is recounted in

Luke 24

1Now upon the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came unto the sepulchre, bringing the spices which they had prepared, and certain others with them.

2And they found the stone rolled away from the sepulchre.

3And they entered in, and found not the body of the Lord Jesus.

4And it came to pass, as they were much perplexed thereabout, behold, two men stood by them in shining garments:

5And as they were afraid, and bowed down their faces to the earth, they said unto them, Why seek ye the living among the dead?

6He is not here, but is risen: remember how he spake unto you when he was yet in Galilee,

7Saying, The Son of man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again.

8And they remembered his words…

It should not surprise us at all, that wherever people have evolved a language of flowers, Lavender represents Purity. There can be no better time than Easter to live in the recollections of Christ represented in the fragrance of Lavender.

The Bible mentions ‘spikenard’, Lavender or one of its essential oils at more than a few important moments, always as something precious and remarkable.

The Easter story contains the most important examples.

For quite a few nights in the last weeks before his death, Jesus seems to have stayed in the village of Bethany, which is where he had attended Lazarus and raised him from the dead.

John 12:

¹Then Jesus six days before the passover came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, which had been dead, whom he raised from the dead.

²There they made him a supper; and Martha served: but Lazarus was one of them that sat at the table with him.

³Then took Mary a pound of ointment of spikenard (oil of lavender), very costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair: and the house was filled with the odour of the ointment.

⁴Then saith one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, which should betray him.

⁵Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor?

⁶This he said, not that he cared for the poor; but because he was a thief, and had the bag, and bare what was put therein.

⁷Then said Jesus, Let her alone: against the day of my burying hath she kept this.

⁸For the poor always ye have with you; but me ye have not always.

Four days later, still in Bethany, but this time at the house of a man called Simon the Leper, the ceremony is repeated

Mark 14:

³And being in Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he sat at meat, there came a woman having an alabaster box of ointment of spikenard very precious; and she brake the box, and poured it on his head.

⁴And there were some that had indignation within themselves, and said, Why was this waste of the ointment made?

⁵For it might have been sold for more than three hundred pence, and have been given to the poor. And they murmured against her.

⁶And Jesus said, Let her alone; why trouble ye her? she hath wrought a good work on me.

⁷For ye have the poor with you always, and whensoever ye will ye may do them good: but me ye have not always.

⁸She hath done what she could: she is come aforehand to anoint my body to the burying.

⁹Verily I say unto you, Wheresoever this gospel shall be preached throughout the whole world, this also that she hath done shall be spoken of for a memorial of her.

The climactic moment is recounted in

Luke 24

¹Now upon the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came unto the sepulchre, bringing the spices which they had prepared, and certain others with them.

²And they found the stone rolled away from the sepulchre.

³And they entered in, and found not the body of the Lord Jesus.

⁴And it came to pass, as they were much perplexed thereabout, behold, two men stood by them in shining garments:

⁵And as they were afraid, and bowed down their faces to the earth, they said unto them, Why seek ye the living among the dead?

⁶He is not here, but is risen: remember how he spake unto you when he was yet in Galilee,

⁷Saying, The Son of man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again.

⁸And they remembered his words…

Win Â£75 worth of Lavenderworld Goodies

Wed, 06 Apr 2011 10:11:00 +0100

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Lavender in Culpeperâs Herbal (1653)

Tue, 05 Apr 2011 11:42:00 +0100

During the reign of James I (1603-1625) any scientific knowledge of medicine was only just coming out of the dark ages. For example, William Harvey made his discovery of the circulation of blood only in the 1620s. The actual practice of medicine relied heavily on a knowledge of the properties of herbs and other plants.

So ‘field guides’ were devoted to herbs’ medicinal properties; and the popularity of such guides reached its height with the publication of Culpeper’s Herbal in 1653.

Lavender had largely been cultivated by monks until the dissolution or closing of the monasteries. Culpeper was living and writing in Spitalfields: even the place name reminds us: hospital fields where healing plants were grown. By now, he was able to say that lavender was an inhabitant almost in every garden … so well known, that it needs no description. It flowers about the end of June, and beginning of July.

Lavender is of a special good use for all the griefs and pains of the head and brain that proceed of a cold cause, as the apoplexy, falling-sickness, the dropsy, or sluggish malady, cramps, convulsions, palsies, and often faintings. Culpeper is writing about every form of Lavender here: potpourri, sprigs, flowers hung in rooms or scattered among floor coverings of rushes,

A decoction made with the culinary lavender, Hore-hound, Fennel and Asparagus root, and a little Cinnamon, is very profitably used to help the falling-sickness, and the giddiness or turning of the brain: to gargle the mouth with the decoction thereof is good against the tooth-ache. In herbalism, a decoction is usually made to extract fluids from hard plant materials such as roots and bark. To achieve this, the plant material is usually boiled for 8–10 minutes in water and then strained. Culpeper seems to be referring less to the lavender (whose flowers would be added) than to the other, tougher plants. The drink is not as simple as Queen Elizabeth’s Lavender tea, but would seem a stronger remedy to his readers.

Two spoonfuls of the distilled water of the lavender flowers taken, helps them that have lost their voice, as also the tremblings and passions of the heart, and faintings and swooning, not only being drank, but applied to the temples, or nostrils to be smelled unto; but it is not safe to use it where the body is replete with blood and humours, because of the hot and subtile spirits wherewith it is possessed. The distilled lavender is the evaporated water (steam) that has passed through lavender in a still being used to release the lavender essential oil. Indeed, we might almost think it a by-product if Culpeper had not told us it is so efficacious. What we have is pure distilled water fragranced with the Lavender.

The chymical oil drawn from lavender, usually called Oil of Spike, is of so fierce and piercing a quality, that it is cautiously to be used, some few drops being sufficient, to be given with other things, either for inward or outward griefs. Culpeper and his readers will have been fully aware of the Biblical properties of this spikenard oil, making its healing properties the strongest of all.

Purple Cushion Sale

Sun, 03 Apr 2011 21:48:00 +0100

Save up to 41% on our Purple Cushions range. Click here to find out more.

New Purple Glassware

Fri, 01 Apr 2011 21:52:00 +0100

Over the last couple of days we have added an exceptional range of Purple Glassware. Why not take a look here.

Lavender, Beeswax and Samuel Pepys

Tue, 29 Mar 2011 18:22:00 +0100

These days, when we tend to buy everything that we need rather than make it for ourselves, it is easy to forget how many small, independent manufactories of household necessities there must have been in the 1660s in every great estate, medium town and small village, all worked by local people whose designs, recipes and methods had been refined over generations.

Household Polish was such a thing, to clean and brighten the woodwork in a room – perhaps the furniture, perhaps the wainscotting panels which lined many homes to protect their walls from damage by chairs being pushed back, or by household pets or children playing. You can use almost any oil as the base for a wood polish, decided by what is available or tolerable, and according to preference. For example, linseed oil is fine for cricket bats, but you would probably find it too pungent for the timbers of your four-poster bed. Many waxes and oils serve equally effectively.

One ready source of wax and oil would have been whatever remained from lights – such as the dregs of whale oil in lamps or the stumps of tallow candles. However, tallow is made by rendering animal fats. At best, you or your servants would use suet and sieve the fats carefully. At worst, you would be using whatever scraps are available and the result would contain impurities. Incidentally, the first soaps were largely made from tallow – and soap still contains sodium tallowate, made from sodium hydroxide (better known as caustic soda or lye), steam, and animal fat.

It is easy to imagine the stink of a room lit by cheap candles, their flames guttering in the imperfections of stale or impure tallow, and to imagine how their smoke would encrust walls and ceilings with filthy, sticky residues.

Polish made from tallow wax would, surely, only add to the stink, and yet polish was necessary to preserve the wood in such rooms. The answer, of course, was to add fragrant herbs, or their oils, to the preparations of wax. For this too, Lavender was a strong favourite, a fashion dictated in the 16th and early 17th centuries by Queen Elizabeth’s own love of the plant.

On Tuesday 11 September 1660, diarist Samuel Pepys dined at (in London) “at Sir W. Batten’s, and by this time I see that we are like to have a very good correspondence and neighbourhood, but chargeable. All the afternoon at home looking over my carpenters. At night I called Thos. Hater out of the office to my house to sit and talk with me. After he was gone I caused the girl to wash the wainscot of our parlour, which she did very well, which caused my wife and I good sport”.

Why should a servant girl washing the wainscot of the parlour provide Pepys and his wife with so much pleasure? What I think is happening is that Pepys, a great social climber, suddenly finds himself able to afford a better polish than ever before. The girl is not using the cheap option of a tallow-based polish with its smell smothered by Lavender. No, Pepys is able to afford Beeswax, itself a much pleasanter scent, and to blend it with Lavender Oil. Once again, the bees who produce the wax have fed upon the Lavender in London’s herb gardens and so the wax and the herb complement each other perfectly in Pepys’ rooms. They still do. No wonder he and his wife are cheerful.

Why should a servant girl washing the wainscot of the parlour provide Pepys and his wife with so much pleasure? What I think is happening is that Pepys, a great social climber, suddenly finds himself able to afford a better polish than ever before. The girl is not using the cheap option of a tallow-based polish with its smell smothered by Lavender. No, Pepys is able to afford Beeswax, itself a much pleasanter scent, and to blend it with Lavender Essential Oil. Once again, the bees who produce the wax have fed upon the Lavender in London’s herb gardens and so the wax and the herb complement each other perfectly in Pepys’ rooms. They still do. No wonder he and his wife are cheerful.

Lavender Mead - or Metheglin

Mon, 28 Mar 2011 10:15:00 +0100

Lavender Mead - or Metheglin

Samuel Pepys, …his Diary, Thursday 3 October 1667: “The lady I pity, and her family. Having done with her, and drunk two glasses of her meade, which she did give me, and so to the Treasurer’s Office, and there find my Lord Bruncker and [Sir] W. Pen at dinner with Sir G. Carteret about his accounts, where I dined and talked and settled some business, and then home.”

Well, if Queen Elizabeth’s tea is not to your taste, try Samuel Pepys’ mead instead, a fermentation of honey and water – or, more precisely for this website, spice it up into a lavender metheglin. You can justify indulging yourself with this alcohol by referring to the word’s Welsh origin: the healing liquor.

Basic mead is very simple. You will need a clean, lidded pan big enough to take a gallon of water, and a couple of glass jugs or flagons or other containers (enough clean wine bottles will do perfectly well) capable of holding the lot while it is fermenting (try your local stockists of home-brew kit).

Gather 2lbs of raw, unprocessed honey, 3 lemons, and 1 packet of wine yeast. Get 4 or 5 teaspoonsful of lavender flowers ready. How much you use will be a matter for your own taste – but better too little than too much for the first experiment.

Begin with about 4 pints of water in the large pan. Add 5 or 6 teaspoons of the yellow part of the peel of a lemon (the ‘zest’), and the lavender flowers – perhaps 3 or 4 teaspoons to start with. Simmer the water until you judge it has been scented by the spices. Add another 2 pints of water and bring it all back to the simmer – not to the boil. Pour the honey into the mixture, stirring it all the time. When scum forms, skim it off. If yellow scum forms, turn the heat down. When scum stops forming, turn the heat off, cover the pan and leave it overnight to bring it to room temperature.

Next morning, add the yeast, stir it in and cover the pan once more. Leave it fermenting for 3 or 4 days.

A thick foam will form by the end of this time: try to leave it behind when you transfer the mixture to the glass containers (bottles, whatever). Siphoning through a slender plastic tube is worth the time. Seal the new containers – but in a way which lets out the bubbles of fermentation. If you are using jugs or bottles, a few layers of paper towel held in place by an elastic band round the neck will do the job. Otherwise, your home-brew stockist will sell you technical gismos to do the same job.

Leave it all at room temperature for at least another 3 days, and then move it to somewhere cooler – like the fridge, if it is big enough. By now, it really is becoming metheglin.

24 hours after this, transfer it all into a fresh, clean container once more (you used the pan earlier: wash it out for this). Add ¼ cup of vodka or schnapps (a grain alcohol) to kill the last of the yeast. Give it another 24 hours and bottle it.

Your metheglin should be drinkable within ten days and really good after 25 – but don’t leave it longer than 6 - 12 months or it will go off. Remember that you are dealing with the living ingredients of unprocessed honey and yeast so you cannot expect ‘standard’ results. Now and again it might be undrinkable, or, with luck and skill, it might be nectar for the gods. After all, in the original mythology, ‘nectar’ truly means ‘sweet liquid in flowers’. Those Greeks knew their stuff.

Once again, Good Luck!

Samuel Pepys,…his Diary, Thursday 3 October 1667: “The lady I pity, and her family. Having done with her, and drunk two glasses of her meade, which she did give me, and so to the Treasurer’s Office, and there find my Lord Bruncker and [Sir] W. Pen at dinner with Sir G. Carteret about his accounts, where I dined and talked and settled some business, and then home.”

Well, if Queen Elizabeth’s lavender tea is not to your taste, try Samuel Pepys’ mead instead, a fermentation of honey and water – or, more precisely for this website, spice it up into a lavender metheglin. You can justify indulging yourself with this alcohol by referring to the word’s Welsh origin: the healing liquor.

Gather 2lbs of raw, unprocessed honey, 3 lemons, and 1 packet of wine yeast. Get 4 or 5 teaspoonsful of culinary lavender ready. How much you use will be a matter for your own taste – but better too little than too much for the first experiment.

Next morning, add the yeast, stir it in and cover the pan once more. Leave it fermenting for 3 or 4 days.

Leave it all at room temperature for at least another 3 days, and then move it to somewhere cooler – like the fridge, if it is big enough. By now, it really is becoming metheglin.

Once again, Good Luck!

Lavender Tea for the Queen

Thu, 24 Mar 2011 18:19:00 +0000

Because its name comes from Latin [lavare – to wash] we believe that the Romans brought Lavender to England. Before they did, it was not a ‘native’ plant. For a thousand years after that, it might have been grown by households or estates; but when the power and influence of Monasteries grew, the Monks grew Lavender – and not many other people did. After all, there are very strong Biblical references to it (usually known by the even older name of spikenard).

Their monopoly of Lavender cultivation ended between 1536 and 1541 with the Dissolution of the Monasteries by Henry VIII. After that, growing Lavender became a domestic task: people with gardens grew what their households required. Or it became industrial: people started farms to grow Lavender on a large scale, to sell to people without gardens – mostly in towns and cities.

Everyone needed Lavender. Scattered among the rushes and straw of floor-coverings, it fought against the stink of urine, thrown-away scraps of food, the mess of animals [household dogs or common rats], old spit hawked into corners, and the mud and soil trodden everywhere. Lavender’s essential oils were trampled out of it and released into the air by the constant tramp of feet.

Elizabeth, daughter of Henry VIII, grew to love Lavender. When she became Queen, she is said to have wanted fresh Lavender flowers in all her rooms every day, demanded Conserve of Lavender on the table at every meal; and (if all that were not enough in the English climate) she trusted that a daily drink of Lavender Tea would ease her anxieties, relieve her muscles from the cramps of stress, and even mitigate the pain of her too frequent migraines.

Strictly speaking, we would call her drink an infusion. You might think it worth a try:

You will need to experiment to find the quantities which best suit your tastes. My own experience is that it works with Yorkshire Tea and dried Lavender Flowers in equal proportions, together with dashes of fresh lemon. Warm a teapot and pour your boiling water over this mix – again, in about the quantities you would use for the same amount of tea-leaves alone. You may add sugar if you wish: Elizabeth’s servants would have added honey – most likely the honey which had itself been created by bees nourished in the same Lavender garden.

Good Luck.

Strictly speaking, we would call her drink an infusion. You might think it worth a try:

Good Luck.

Purple Day

Wed, 23 Mar 2011 21:29:00 +0000

There’s certainly something about the colour purple as the ‘Purple Man of York’ can testify and now an official day has been marked in its honor. Purple Day has been recognised as the global day of epilepsy awareness and is held each year on the 26th March. This year Lavenderworld is proud to both support and celebrate the day by donating 10% of sales taken on the day to the worthwhile charity.

Purple is a colour widely recognised for its use throughout history. Most associated as the colour of Royalty, purple is also used to represent Lent and Advent and has strong associations with both the Catholic and Church of England religions.Sam Goodwill, founder of Lavenderworld said: “It is great to see that there is now a global purple day which is celebrated around the world. What better way to associate this wonderful colour with epilepsy and I am proud to support the charity in this way.“At Lavenderworld we have a wide range of popular purple household products and so it seemed fitting to donate 10% on the sales taken on purple day to this great cause.”

My Purple Pal

Mon, 14 Mar 2011 21:47:00 +0000

My Purple Pal by Julie Short

I always have Lavender in my bag wherever I go. It's my purple pal, for use when I'm feeling down or stressed, for when I have a wound that needs a styptic (stops bleeding) or when I want the place I'm in to be free from bugs. It's also got a lovely smell.

I've been an ardent fan of Lavender for as long as I can remember. I'm very into essential oils as a whole, but Lavender is one of those oils that seems to tick all the boxes in terms of being a good pal.

When I go away on holiday or overnight for business I always sprinkle the bed linen with a few drops of Lavender oil to clear away the bugs. It also makes the bedroom smell lovely and yet another positive... Lavender helps you sleep!

If you want fresh smelling clothes, you can add a few drops of oil to the final rinse of your wash cycle for beautifully Lavender fragranced linen (or if you use a tumble dryer, put a few drops on a cotton cloth and add it to the load). I also put some drops on cotton wool balls in my drawers and wardrobe. And my car has a little knitted sock lined with wadding with cotton wool stuffed in the middle onto which I have dropped some Lavender oil. It’s a much nicer way to fragrance the car without resorting to the chemicals used in car fresheners. It will probably work out much cheaper too, as you only need a couple of drops every so often… a 100ml bottle holds a lot of drops!

I've been an ardent fan of Lavender essential oil for as long as I can remember. I'm very into essential oils as a whole, but Lavender is one of those oils that seems to tick all the boxes in terms of being a good pal.

It's antiseptic, antibiotic and antibacterial properties are fantastic, which is why I use it for putting on wounds. And I have even used it on burns (sounds odd putting oil on a burn, but in this instance it works). They do seem to heal quicker in my opinion.When I go away on holiday or overnight for business I always sprinkle the bed linen with a few drops of Lavender oil to clear away the bugs. It also makes the bedroom smell lovely and yet another positive... Lavender helps you sleep!

Guest Post by Julie Short

Add two drops â and relaaaaxxxxxxxx

Thu, 10 Mar 2011 13:52:00 +0000

Over the last 8 months, I have been battling breast cancer. There is now quite a bit less of me than there was when I started, and I’m not just referring to my hair loss. Two weeks ago, I had my last chemotherapy treatment, my prognosis is good, and I have a final bout of reconstruction to look forward to before starting endocrine therapy as the last part of kicking cancer into touch.

I’ve always been a bath girl, not a shower woman. Showers have their place, but in my book you can’t beat a good old soak in the bath.

Up to your chin in bubbles of scented loveliness, the world drifts away and my sanity is restored. Or it would be if I didn’t live on a Royal Air Force station, 500 yards from the end of the runway.

When I started my chemotherapy in November last year, the cancer care team were keen to emphasise the importance of stress management in the process. We discussed various options, and my already significant bathing habit was pronounced a definite plus in the stress management regime. So I stocked up with all manner of lovely stress relieving products – lavender bubble bath, lavender soap, lavender oil/body lotion/hand cream/candles – you get the drift.

I run my training business from home, so I planned to involve a daily stress relieving bathe into my wellness programme (which also involved chocolate, jelly babies & wine). What I hadn’t taken into account was the RAF failing to take into account that the flying programme needed to stop at 4.30pm in order for my stress levels to fall! Sitting in a beautifully scented bath, candles lit, book at the ready, sounds utterly blissfull until 3 aircraft are on the taxiway or threshold working up to take off.

LOUD.

Once they’ve gone, you of course then have the inevitable wait for them to come back. At warp factor snot, directly over the top of the house.

LOUDER.

No amount of lavender oil can deal with that!

I gave in, and moved bathtime to after 5pm……

My blog is http://sdwhyatt.wordpress.com/

I’ve always been a bath girl, not a shower woman. Showers have their place, but in my book you can’t beat a good old soak in the bath.

When I started my chemotherapy in November last year, the cancer care team were keen to emphasise the importance of stress management in the process. We discussed various options, and my already significant bathing habit was pronounced a definite plus in the stress management regime. So I stocked up with all manner of lovely stress relieving products – lavender bubble bath, lavender soap, lavender essential oil/body lotion/hand cream/candles – you get the drift.

LOUD.

Once they’ve gone, you of course then have the inevitable wait for them to come back. At warp factor snot, directly over the top of the house.

LOUDER.

No amount of lavender oil can deal with that!

I gave in, and moved bathtime to after 5pm……

Guest Post by Sheena - My blog is http://sdwhyatt.wordpress.com/

Does Your Man Know He is Wearing Lavender?

Wed, 09 Mar 2011 16:21:00 +0000

Lavender is used everywhere in products nowadays but one place you may not have realised is in men's aftershave.

We have listed below a number of the most popular male fragrances which include notes of lavender. Does your man wear any of them?

1) Tuscany Per Uomo

Top note of Lavender

2) Boss Bottled

Heart note of Lavender

3) Beckham - Intimately Yours Men

Heart note of Lavender

4) Dolce & Gabbana Pour Homme

Heart note of Lavender.

5) Bvlgari Pour Homme

Top note of Lavender

6) Hugo Man

Heart note of Lavender

7) Armani eau Pour Homme

Heart note of Lavender

8) Davidoff Cool Water

Heart note of Lavender

9) Police Original

Top note of Lavender

10) Versace L'Homme

Heart note of Lavender

18 Cool Table Mats

Tue, 08 Mar 2011 10:12:00 +0000

Here on Lavenderworld we sell a number of items which some people would describe as not exactly conservative. The Purple Place Mat is one such item. We therefore decided to create a list of some of the most wacky placemats out there. Enjoy!

Image - Mode Studio

Image - Mocoloco

Image - Eatock.com

Image - Elladoran.co.uk

Image - Hot Frog

Image - Cutlery Shop

Image - Helenafly

Image - Holykaw

Image - So Many Tables

10)

Image - W2 Products

11)

Image - Still for Life

12)

Image - Style Hive

13)

Image - Delight.com

14)

Image - Etsy

15)

Image - Candh

16)

Image - Velocity

17)

Image - JoshJakus.com

18)

Our very own Purple Place Mat

The Purple Man of York

Mon, 07 Mar 2011 13:52:00 +0000

If you have ever been to York then it is highly likely that you have seen this 'Purple Man'! He is usually situated on Stonegate and by the look of his money tins, he does very well out of the tourists!

FREE Worldwide Delivery on Lavender Oil

Fri, 04 Mar 2011 18:11:00 +0000

We have begun to take many requests from people around the world who would like to buy this lavender essential oil. We are pleased to announce that from today we will be taking orders for it from outside the UK.

To order from abroad, please contact us and we will be in touch right away. Our website currently is not set up to take orders from overseas - hopefully soon:) Both 10ml (0.3oz) bottles are priced at £6.95 each, ($11.25 / 8.07 Euro)

Currently it is only the lavender oil that we can offer FREE delivery abroad on. We will hopefully be adding more products very soon.

Irish Cricket Captain Goes Purple

Wed, 02 Mar 2011 12:20:00 +0000

The Irish Cricket Captain has today dyed his hair purple in aid of the Irish Cancer Society. With Red Nose Day coming up in the UK, are you doing anything to raise money? Anything involving the colour purple? If so let us know and we can add it to this post and hopefully get you a few more donations.

Would you like a FREE Lavender Oil

Wed, 02 Mar 2011 11:59:00 +0000

To get a free oil, we are asking for guest posts on this blog.

You will also get a link back to your blog if you have one. Can be on a wide range of topics, so long as we can loosely tie it in with Lavender, purple etc.

If interested, please do get in contact.

A Lovely Comment to Receive

Tue, 01 Mar 2011 12:21:00 +0000

"I would like to thank you for the information you have made available in your shop regarding the use of lavender oil in a roller ball bottle. For most of my life I have suffered terribly from

insomnia, but since I came to your shop and bought a bottle of the roller ball lavender oil, I have had sound sleep every night ever since! It is no word of a lie, and the complete honest truth, for 18 months now, it is is a miracle, to me, to be able to find comfort and rest when I lay down at

night and often I get to sleep before my husband! This is a fantastic boon for me and a complete change in my life. I recommend it to so many people and even my brother sometimes finds rest from the anguish of tinnitus. Thank you doesn't seem to be enough, but please know how much comfort you have given me, as well as repeat business - I use it every single night and no other oil seems to be as good! Long may the Yorkshire Lavender reign"

We recently received this comment from a lady called Alison who often buys our lavender essential oil to help her sleep.

I would like to thank you for the information you have made available in your shop regarding the use of lavender oil in a roller ball bottle. For most of my life I have suffered terribly from insomnia, but since I came to your shop and bought a bottle of the roller ball lavender oil, I have had sound sleep every night ever since! It is no word of a lie, and the complete honest truth, for 18 months now, it is is a miracle, to me, to be able to find comfort and rest when I lay down at night and often I get to sleep before my husband! This is a fantastic boon for me and a complete change in my life. I recommend it to so many people and even my brother sometimes finds rest from the anguish of tinnitus. Thank you doesn't seem to be enough, but please know how much comfort you have given me, as well as repeat business - I use it every single night and no other oil seems to be as good!

Ladies - Lavender is the new "headache"

Mon, 28 Feb 2011 21:43:00 +0000

Lavender has been used throughout history for its culinary and seductive qualities. Cleopatra famously used the lavender scent to seduce Julius Cesar and Mark Antony. The time has now come for you to turn those aphrodisiac qualities upside down.

Today lavender is coming back into culinary fashion with the help of many celebrity chefs including James Martin and the Michelin starred Heston Blumenthal.

Now it is your turn to bring this culinary herb into your kitchen and by doing so it will not be you who has to use the “headache” excuse. Instead the sleep inducing properties of lavender will have your partner's head hitting the pillow long before they have had chance to ask for “dessert”.

Lead them astray with this romantic 3 course meal:

Starter:

Avocado and Kiwi Salad with Grilled Goat’s Cheese

2 tbs Raspberry Vinegar

4 tbs Light Olive Oil

1 tsp Dried Lavender

¼ tsp Salt

¼ tsp Caster Sugar

2 ripe Avocados

4 Kiwis

150g / 5oz Rocket Leaves

4 x 1cm / ½” slices of Chevre (goats’ cheese in a log shape)

4 x 1cm ½” slices of Brioche, Toasted.

Mix together the vinegar and oil. In a pestle and mortar, grind the lavender, salt and sugar. Mix into the oil and vinegar. Peel and dice the avocados and kiwis. Line 2 small plates with rocket leaves.

Place the goats’ cheese on top of the brioche and place under a hot grill. Toast until cheese is browned and bubbling.

Put a piece of cheese-topped brioche in the centre of each plate. Surround with the avocado and kiwi and drizzle the dressing over all. Serve immediately.

Main:

Lavender Schnitz – Pork Escallops with Lavender

8 Pork Escallops

125g / 4oz fresh Wholemeal Breadcrumbs

1 tsp Dried Lavender, crushed

1 Clove Garlic, crushed

½ tsp Mixed Peppercorns, crushed

1 Large Egg, beaten

50g / 20z Butter

1 Onion, chopped

1 additional tsp Dried Lavender

200ml / 7fl oz Sweet White Wine (such as Spanish Moscatel)

150ml / 5fl oz Crème Fraiche

Beat the escallops with a steak hammer or rolling pin until very thin. Combine the breadcrumbs, lavender, garlic and peppercorns. Spread out on a plate. Dip the escallops in the egg and then in the breadcrumb mixture, carefully coating both sides. Chill Well.

Melt the butter in a large skillet and fry the escallops until nicely browned on both sides. Keep warm, fry the onion in the pan. When browned add the additional lavender and wine. Reduce by half, then whisk in the crème fraiche off the heat. Serve the escallops with the sauce, new potatoes and green beans.

Dessert:

Lavender, Lemon and Honey Ice Cream

1 pt / 600ml Double Cream

1 large pot of Natural Yogurt

The grated rind and juice of one Lemon

1 tbs runny Honey

1 dsp Dried Lavender

Sugar to taste

Whisk the cream until it is the same consistency as the yogurt. Fold these two together and blend in the lemon rind and juice, honey and dried lavender. Sweeten to taste with sugar and freeze the ice cream until needed.

Recipes - First UK serial rights to Yorkshire Lavender

When is the perfect time to plant Lavender?

Fri, 25 Feb 2011 11:50:00 +0000

When is the perfect time to plant lavender?

We get this question asked a lot a Yorkshire Lavender – and I can understand why!

At the beginning of the growing season when we visit plant centres and nurseries, we see plants appear, for sale in full leaf with lots of new growth – Be aware! Often plants at this time of year have been grown in hot houses here in England and abroad. (Sadly, too many plants arrive from foreign parts).

It is tempting – and I have done it myself, to buy these luscious plants in early Spring and sink them straight into the cold earth in ones garden. To be horrified after a spring frost to find the adored plant scorched or limp and literally hanging on for dear life for the next few months!

So when buying plants at this time of year – do try and find out the history of them and act accordingly, ie : try to harden your new purchased plant off a little before, planting them out into the cold ground.

We pride ourselves here at Yorkshire Lavender, when asked “are these lavender plants hardy?” and “can we plant them straight away into the ground?” We know here our overwintered plants can tolerate the cold ground, in fact they do have a head start having been hardened off outside in all weathers from strong winds to 30 cm buried in snow. The one thing lavender does not like is to be sat in water!

So Yes! This is a very good time to plant your lavender species Angustifolia and Intermedia.

I must make you aware of the Stoechas (or French/Spanish) variety which is half hardy here in Yorkshire, but in the Spring/Summer time the stoechas make beautiful, strong fragrant lavender plants which flower from May to September if regularly dead headed! We recommend this variety to plant out in April/May but do protect in the winter months.

All lavender plants are so easy to grow and will come back year after year and give you, your bees and butterflies lots of pleasure!

Enjoy!

We get this question asked a lot a Yorkshire Lavender - and I can understand why!

At the beginning of the growing season when we visit plant centres and nurseries, we see plants appear, for sale in full leaf with lots of new growth - Be aware! Often plants at this time of year have been grown in hot houses here in England and abroad. (Sadly, too many plants arrive from foreign parts).

It is tempting - and I have done it myself, to buy these luscious plants in early Spring and sink them straight into the cold earth in ones garden. To be horrified after a spring frost to find the adored plant scorched or limp and literally hanging on for dear life for the next few months!

So when buying plants at this time of year - do try and find out the history of them and act accordingly, ie: try to harden your new purchased plant off a little before, planting them out into the cold ground.

We pride ourselves here at Yorkshire Lavender, when asked "are these lavender plants hardy?" and "can we plant them straight away into the ground?" We know here our overwintered plants can tolerate the cold ground, in fact they do have a head start having been hardened off outside in all weathers from strong winds to 30 cm buried in snow. The one thing lavender does not like is to be sat in water!

So Yes! This is a very good time to plant your lavender species Angustifolia and Intermedia.

All lavender plants are so easy to grow and will come back year after year and give you, your bees and butterflies lots of pleasure!

Enjoy!

Blog Post by Julia Snowball - Head Gardener at our sister company Yorkshire Lavender.

Lavender oil: potent antifungal effect scientifically proven

Thu, 24 Feb 2011 12:28:00 +0000

When I agreed to write this blog, I wasn’t sure what subject I’d cover. Lavender is probably my favourite essential oil and I really have to be careful not to add it to everything: the creams and soaps I make, the cakes I bake, the carpet I clean… So I knew I wouldn’t have a problem to write about it.

I just couldn’t expect that, with the deadline approaching, I’d so fortunate to find about a study which has just been published on the respectable Journal of Medical Microbiology: Portuguese researchers proved the potent antifungal effect of lavender oil against common skin and nail fungal infections.

My brain was in ecstasy – and lavender oil wasn’t the culprit!

For anyone who has ever suffered with conditions such as thrush, Athlete’s foot, ringworm or nail infections, you’re probably aware how hard it is to treat and how long it takes to get rid of these. Besides, there is a relatively high chance of recurrence.

Fungal and bacterial infections are on the rise, as it is microbe resistance to drugs. Few antifungal drugs are available, and most of them have undesirable side effects.

As the Portuguese research team explained, ‘essential oils may be cheap, efficient alternatives that have minimal side effects’. Indeed!

Lavender oil is probably one of the most studied and widely used essential oils available (check previous posts on Lavenderworld blog). Its therapeutic characteristics are widely known, notably its sedative action – everyone knows it helps you to relax and have a good night of sleep!

Lavender oil may have become very popular not only because of its sweet, floral and refreshing scent but also because it is a considerably safe oil to use. It can even be applied to children.

Understanding how lavender oil kills fungi is the first step into developing a way of using lavender oil to fight infections. Of course there is still a long way to go in the quest for a natural, non-toxic (to humans!) alternative to cure fungal infections – but these results are very promising.

I love lavender oil, so I’ll be following the advances of medicine to see when this powerful plant finally gets the recognition it deserves.

If you want to read more about this study, please go to:

http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-02-lavender-oil-potent-antifungal-effect.html

Guest post by Andrea Palluch from Skin Bistro (www.skinbistro.co.uk). Skin Bistro is Victoria Regia's special range of ready-made products for sale to the public. I make luxurious products with high quality organic, natural and fair trade ingredients, whenever possible. I'm always creating new products, and adjusting recipes according to seasons. I also offer a fully bespoke service.

When I agreed to write this blog, I wasn’t sure what subject I’d cover. Lavender is probably my favourite essential oil and I really have to be careful not to add it to everything: the creams and soaps I make, the carpet I clean… So I knew I wouldn’t have a problem to write about it.

My brain was in ecstasy – and lavender oil wasn’t the culprit!

Fungal and bacterial infections are on the rise, as it is microbe resistance to drugs. Few antifungal drugs are available, and most of them have undesirable side effects.

As the Portuguese research team explained, ‘essential oils may be cheap, efficient alternatives that have minimal side effects’.Indeed!

Lavender oil may have become very popular not only because of its sweet, floral and refreshing scent but also because it is a considerably safe oil to use. It can even be applied to children.

I love lavender oil, so I’ll be following the advances of medicine to see when this powerful plant finally gets the recognition it deserves.If you want to read more about this study, please go to: http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-02-lavender-oil-potent-antifungal-effect.html

Lavender For Lovers

Wed, 02 Feb 2011 13:53:00 +0000

February is here and in many cultures worldwide, men are begrudgingly beginning to price red roses and other bouquets for Valentine’s Day. Instead of spending an arm and a leg on the same old cut flowers, why not give the gift of lavender this year!? Long known for its intoxicating scent and brilliant blooms, Lavender has a rich history for being a romantic herb. A fragrant symbol of fidelity that lovers have exchanged as a token of their devotion for decades, lavender is still one of the most popular and versatile herbs today.

Believed to possess the power to reveal a maiden’s true love, lavender was used to flavor a drink taken for romantic divination on St. Luke’s Day, during the Tudor period. This heady herb was also tucked between sheets and under pillows to ensure romantic dreams and marital bliss. An old superstition that comes to mind states that “if you place lavender between your bed sheets, lovers will never go to bed angry”. Even Cleopatra allegedly used lavender to seduce Julius Caesar and Mark Antony by way of its exhilarating perfume.

Practical use of lavender reaches back to the Ancient Egyptian days when it was used to anoint and mummify pharaohs, and stood as a sign of high class. It was also believed to repel and protect people from contagious epidemics, like the cholera outbreaks that occurred throughout Europe during the 16^th and 17^th Centuries. Because it does contain some astringent properties, lavender actually wasn’t a bad choice for thwarting disease. The seemingly supernatural effect that lavender had against witchcraft and “the evil eye” was strengthened once people saw that it helped repel disease. As superstition began to die out in more modern days, lavender was grown in and around homes less for protection from evil spirits and more for its pleasant aroma.

Also a great culinary herb, lavender lends a floral, fruity tone to your favorite recipe. Whether eaten raw in a fresh salad or used in a mix of Herbes de Provence, a French mix of savory herbs, named for one of the world’s largest commercial cosmetic producers of lavender, in southern region of Provence, France. Lavender tea will also help soothe an upset stomach and relax your nerves. The very smell of lavender has scientifically been proven to reduce anxiety, which is why it is so highly used in spa and aromatherapy products. The herb’s essential oils make a soothing all natural shampoo, soap and bath soak, and are also used for massage purposes.

Because of its soothing scent and hardy habit, lavender has remained an herb of interest throughout the world. For almost 2,500 years people have continued to cultivate lavender for culinary, cosmetic, medicinal and aromatic uses. With over 115 different varieties, each type offers something new to love about this dynamic plant. Able to resist cold, drought and insects, lavender is an easy plant to grow, provided it’s not overwatered. (They don’t seem to like wet “feet”). Give the gift that keeps on giving this year, and show your love by giving this sweet-scented herb. Whether it’s a live plant, a soap or bath soak, or a lovely scented candle—the possibilities are endless, just like our love for lavender!

See our new Lavender Hearts which are perfect for Valentine's Day.

Guest Blog by The Growers Exchange - At The Growers Exchange, our plants are "Grown Right, Picked Right, and Packed Right", meaning we ensure only the healthiest plants are shipped directly from our family-owned greenhouses to your doorstep. Specializing in herbs from the traditional to the unique, as well as some of our favorite flowers, we provide quality, established plants for culinary, aromatic and medicinal use!

My New Secret Ingredient...Lavender Essential Oil

Fri, 28 Jan 2011 14:07:00 +0000

I’ve always been a bit of a night owl but it’s been taking its toll now I’m heading towards the big 3 -0. I’ve started getting really bad under eye shadows and getting much worse at dragging myself out of bed for work everyday. Now the common sense approach is to go to bed a bit earlier, but irrespective of the time I go to bed I can’t get to sleep until the early hours.

Enough was enough and I decided to look for a natural way to combat my poor sleeping patterns as I don’t like the idea of sleeping tablets or anything. Far too synthetic and far too ‘Hollywood’ (for my liking anyway). So after a bit of mooching about on the internet, lavender products seemed to be the best solution for me. After finding out about lavender essential oil, I bought some and started putting a few drops on hankerchief and tucking it into my pillow slip. The difference has been remarkable. It’s the easiest and most interrupted sleep I’ve had for years. I’ve since found out that rubbing a bit onto the soles of your feet can help you to sleep too so I’m going to give that a try!

I decided to look further into the different variations that lavender comes in because I think that once you’ve found something that works that you should stick with it and also look for other ways it can enhance your life. I was surprised to see how versatile lavender actually is! You can use the oil to treat minor burns because of its antiseptic properties which is good for me as I love cooking but I’m always burning myself on the edge of the oven or on pans. The biggest surprise for me was finding out about a culinary variety of lavender. I didn’t realise you could put it into food! I just thought (like many people) it was for soaps and scenty things. It’s certainly made me want to find a good recipe and see what it tastes like! I’ll let you know how I get on...

I suppose my final thoughts on this are that lavender in any shape or form is a great investment. It can be used for ailments but can also be used for cookery and crafts. It’s something I’ll always have in my house now, that’s for sure!

The following is a guest blog post by tillyrandomchatter.blogspot.com

Guest Bloggers Wanted

Wed, 26 Jan 2011 14:20:00 +0000

Do you have a blog? Want to increase your exposure? We have a number of guest posts available on our blog. You will get a link back to your blog and you will earn 5% commission on any sales that come through the post. Minimum 200 words and post can be on a wide range of topics.

If interested please do get in touch.

If interested please do get in touch.

Lavender Weddings

Sun, 09 Jan 2011 21:40:00 +0000

Lavender Weddings

Known for its delicate aroma and calming properties, lavender is widely used for medicinal purposes, in aromatherapy, beauty regimes and crafts. During the middle ages, the lavender herb was considered to be a herb of love, making it perfect for use at weddings.

As an alternative to paper or rice confetti which has been prohibited from many wedding venues, dried lavender confetti is ideal. Made from dried lavender buds, it is environmentally friendly, natural and adds the enchanting signature scent of lavender to the special occasion.

Dried lavender can also be used for wedding favours, making sweet smelling gifts that will look wonderful on any table display, providing an aromatic ambience for the special day. Wedding favours are easily made using fragrant dried lavender flowers mixed with a few drops of lavender essential oil. This mixture can then be divided into small organza or muslin bags, fastened with a silk ribbon to match the colour scheme of the wedding.

Dried lavender is also available in culinary form. Lavender wedding cakes and lavender cup cakes are a popular choice, decorated with sprigs of fresh lavender, completing the theme with the sweet yet distinctive taste of lavender.

Dried lavender can also be used for wedding favours, making sweet smelling gifts that will look wonderful on any table display, providing an aromatic ambience for the special day. Wedding favours are easily made using fragrant dried lavender flowers mixed with a few drops of lavender essential oil. This mixture can then be divided into small organza or muslin bags, fastened with a silk ribbon to match the colour scheme of the wedding.

Bunches of dried lavender can make beautiful table decorations, the fresh and flora scent and the pretty purple colour is a stylish addition to any wedding decor. Place settings and can be spritzed with lavender linen spray to enhance the elegant aroma. Dried lavender is also available in culinary form. Lavender wedding cakes and lavender cup cakes are a popular choice, decorated with sprigs of fresh lavender, completing the theme with the sweet yet distinctive taste of lavender.

Affiliate Scheme

Wed, 05 Jan 2011 14:01:00 +0000

We have today launched our affiliate scheme which is a pay per click system. I.e. Your website has a few of Lavenderworld's products listed, everytime a visitor clicks on one of those products, you get paid 10p! Please contact us for more information.

NO VAT Increase

Mon, 03 Jan 2011 21:53:00 +0000

As other companies around the country add the VAT increase to prices, Lavenderworld.co.uk will be doing no such thing. We have decided not to pass on this increase.

Sam

Purple Kettle and Toaster

Mon, 03 Jan 2011 17:58:00 +0000

Buy the Purple Kettle and Toaster together and save £9. You must use linked to page to get the discount.

PotPourri with Dried Lavender

Wed, 29 Dec 2010 14:04:00 +0000

We have added to the site a very simple recipe for Potpourri which includes dried lavender. Check it out here.

Merry Christmas

Wed, 22 Dec 2010 10:56:00 +0000

Everyone at Lavenderworld would like to wish all our customers a Merry Christmas. We launched the website in September and have been amazed at the response so far so thank you very much. We have a lot more planned for 2011 and hope you will join us at this exciting time.

Purple Kettle and Lavender Essential Oil

Fri, 15 Oct 2010 09:42:00 +0100

Currently if you buy a Purple Kettle you will receive a free lavender essential oil worth £4.95!

Lavender Hidcote

Mon, 27 Sep 2010 13:46:00 +0100

Lavender Hidcote

Hidcote is the quintessential English lavender which is a long established favourite in gardens around the country.

A dwarf variety it will reach around 45cm (18 inches) in height and spread.

Deep purple flowers on short stems protrude from grey-green leaves during the summer months.

Exceptionally popular for hedging, plant around 30 – 45cm (1 foot to 18 inches) apart.

It is an ideal plant to edge around a vegetable patch as it will attract bees in their hundreds and so aid the pollination of crops.

Picture to follow...

Pruning Lavender

Wed, 22 Sep 2010 11:40:00 +0100

Pruning Lavender

All Lavenders need to be cut back.

We recommend that you cut your lavender back around September time ( between 10:00am - 11:00am on September 15th!) once flowering has finished. If you have stoechas lavender (French, with the butterfly flower heads) cut back around half the green growth in March.

It isn’t just dead-heading your lavender. You want to prune past the flower stem, down to around half an inch above the hard wood.

This will encourage new growth in the Spring from the bottom of the plant.

The shape you have created makes a neat mound and gives structure over the winter months to your garden.

It is then ready for its new growth in the Spring, where you can give it a light trim just to maintain its mound shape.

Yorkshire Lavender, our sister company has one of the largest selection of plants in the north of England including grasses, alpines, annuals, perennials, lavender and much more! If you ever have any questions about a plant, then just get in touch, they will be happy to help.

Save money on Lavender Oil

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 14:08:00 +0100

Lavender Essential Oil is such a versatile oil that it can be used for pretty much anything. Having trouble sleeping? Then try rubbing some oil onto the soles of your feet before you go to bed. It does work! Have you just burnt yourself in the kitchen? After cooling the burn under cold water, apply some lavender oil and the affected area will heal very quickly and will not leave a scar.

We currently have Lavender Oil on offer for only £4.95 for a 10ml bottle until September 15th 2010. You save £2!

Would you like to earn some money?

Thu, 26 Aug 2010 15:56:00 +0100

We have just launched an affiliate scheme here at Lavenderworld.co.uk. For every paying customer you send our way from your website you will get a 5% commission on their basket total. We also offer a 30 day cookie. This means that you will make a commission on any other purchases your visitor makes within 30 days of their original click through.

For more information please email: info@lavenderworld.co.uk

10% off Opening Offer

Sat, 21 Aug 2010 16:53:00 +0100

To celebrate the launch of Lavenderworld.co.uk we are giving you 10% off your order when you enter the code: lavender10% at the checkout. This offer will run until 30/09/2010.

Facebook & Twitter

Sat, 21 Aug 2010 16:48:00 +0100

Lavenderworld.co.uk is now on Facebook and Twitter. Join us for all the latest news and offers.

Welcome to Lavenderworld

Thu, 08 Jul 2010 12:38:00 +0100

Hello and welcome to our Lavenderworld website. Lavenderworld is a family owned company that has been involved with lavender for many years. Our first company, Yorkshire Lavender was founded in 1997. Since then, we have been on a remarkable journey in researching and experimenting with the many different uses and varieties of lavender.

Here at Lavenderworld we aim to provide you with a wide range of high quality and innovative products for the home, garden and more importantly for yourself. Lavender is our specialty so feel free to contact us with any questions or suggestions you may have for our site.

Don’t forget to check out our Stress Free Zone section for handy hints and tips on how this lavender can be used to de-stress and relax.

We hope Lavenderworld will give you everything you need in order to lead an easy, stress free lifestyle.

Sam

Blog

The Full Flavour of the February Garden

The Lavenderworld Landscape Photography Competition

Prizes:

1st Place: £500 of Photographic Equipment of your choice!

2nd Place: £300 of Photographic Equipment of your choice!

3rd Place: £200 of Photographic Equipment of your choice!

Competition Rules

January Jobs for Gardeners

Pickling with Herbs

The Winter Garden Tool Box

Jobs to do in a Winter Garden

Nurture your November Nature!

Fill Your Garden with September Sunshine

To Plug or Not to Plug? â That is the Question!

Nature's Medicine Chest

Gardening for the Poor of Sight

Literary Lavender 2

Literary Lavender

Lavender leaves things 'Spick and Span'

"Lavender Works..."

Cleopatra: the Lavender Twist in the Tail

How Lavender kept Grave Robbers alive

You Spoke, We Listened

Lavender goes to the Dogs

Lavender at Easter

Luke 24

Win Â£75 worth of Lavenderworld Goodies

Lavender in Culpeperâs Herbal (1653)

Purple Cushion Sale

New Purple Glassware

Lavender, Beeswax and Samuel Pepys

Lavender Mead - or Metheglin

Lavender Tea for the Queen

Purple Day

My Purple Pal

Add two drops â and relaaaaxxxxxxxx

Does Your Man Know He is Wearing Lavender?

18 Cool Table Mats

The Purple Man of York

FREE Worldwide Delivery on Lavender Oil

Irish Cricket Captain Goes Purple

Would you like a FREE Lavender Oil

A Lovely Comment to Receive

Ladies - Lavender is the new "headache"

When is the perfect time to plant Lavender?

Lavender oil: potent antifungal effect scientifically proven

Lavender For Lovers

My New Secret Ingredient...Lavender Essential Oil

Guest Bloggers Wanted

Lavender Weddings

Affiliate Scheme

NO VAT Increase

Purple Kettle and Toaster

PotPourri with Dried Lavender

Merry Christmas

Purple Kettle and Lavender Essential Oil

Lavender Hidcote

Pruning Lavender

Save money on Lavender Oil

Would you like to earn some money?

10% off Opening Offer

Facebook & Twitter

Welcome to Lavenderworld

To Plug or Not to Plug? â That is the Question!

Lavender in Culpeperâs Herbal (1653)

Add two drops â and relaaaaxxxxxxxx