For decades now tea has been a cornerstone of our family life. It is through tea we help mark and create our daily rhythms. We begin each morning with a simple cup of tea, with a bit of honey and soy or dairy milk. This wakens us to the tasks before us and carries us forward into what must be accomplished during each morning. My personal early morning choice is always a black tea, usually with some fruity addition: blackberry sage, ginger peach, or perhaps blueberry. This subtle jolt of caffeine agrees with my system and tastes. The simple act of drinking a cup of tea each morning establishes a certain pace, rightness and rhythm. All is well. Now, into the day.

Lunch arrives and is no exception, though my choice for midday honors my extreme sensitivity to caffeine. Now we are turning the corner toward evening, and so this is the perfect time to include a healthy dose of iced green tea. While green tea does contain caffeine, it just over half what coffee contains. I find this a better choice for midday. Delicious, refreshing, nurturing and a big plus towards maintaining the excellent health with which I am blessed.

To make this selection super easy I have a practice of making a big pan of hot green tea once each week. I simply bring to boiling about ten cups of water in a stainless steel pan, add high quality green tea, and let it steep. While it’s still warm I add some honey for sweetening. Then I allow the tea to cool to room temperature, then store this same pan in the frig for the week. This gives me a goodly amount for each day at lunch. When the pan is empty I immediately make up a new batch. I love the practice of having certain things “all made up” beforehand, and green tea is thankfully on that list. The blessing of green tea on hand is always deeply appreciated. And did I mention how much you save by making up your own? Healthy and smart.

I have added a new image to my Green Tea Ritual, deepening my appreciation of green tea at its source. This is what green tea fields look like. Isn’t this amazing?

While I am not a person who drinks tea at “teatime” as the English do, or even after dinner, as some are inclined, I do take stock of myself before bedtime to see if I might benefit from a cup of chamomile. I am reviewing myself with two things in mind: have a relaxed enough as the evening has unfolded that I am ready to get a good night’s sleep (or was I not prudent and spent a bit too much time on, say, Twitter when I should have been unwinding from a day’s work)? And, secondly, has my last contact with food been thoroughly digested or could I use a little help? Hmmm. If I could benefit from either of those two conditions chamomile is indeed in order.

I have a very long association with chamomile and so does our culture, from two directions. The early settlers brought English (or Roman) chamomile with them to the New World. And the Spanish took manzanilla (or German chamomile) with them to Latin America. Manzanilla is very common in Mexico, just as chamomile has become fairly common in America. If you haven’t tried it, do. I can speak from long experience that it will help with any indigestion. And if you can’t sleep, get up and make yourself a cup of chamomile (being careful to keep light levels very low so you don’t destroy what melatonin your body has already produced), and sip it and I guarantee you you will go to sleep in a bit. On rare occasions my dogs will awaken me in the night, and thank goodness I can rely on chamomile should I have trouble getting back to my deep sleep. So I am a huge fan of this herb and am known to have whispered, “Thank you, God, for
chamomile,” into a dark night more than once.

In thinking about tea I contemplated my garden as a source. There are herbs, mostly rosemary, lavender and oregano. But the only herb I have growing that I think of as a tea is a small bunch of mint.

I chose a spot what would allow it to expand, as I had always heard that mint is invasive, but, be it a hybrid or what, it has not done that. However, I was happy I’d given it a closer inspection, given that it was going to have its picture taken, as I realized this one has now at last sent out some runners, so I’m hoping for a good mint source perhaps by next spring. Fingers crossed. Its tasty. I will say that. I tried a leaf. And I’m sure you likely know that mint is also a good source of digestive aid, not unlike chamomile.

I am hoping through this simple post that you will think about including more natural teas in your daily lives, or will share with us what ones you’ve turned to. I could write about the more medicinal qualities of herbs, but not today. My focus here was simply to suggest the inclusion of the simple cup of tea.

Love and garden blessings,
Kathryn xoxo

Posted on September 23rd, 2009 by Kathryn
Filed under: Plants | 12 Comments »

In all honesty until reading Bringing Nature Home: How You Can Sustain Wildlife with Native Plants by entomologist Douglas W. Tallamy I think I was rather avoiding the subject of native plant rearing. In asking myself why? I had to admit that I associated the largely misunderstood concept of native plant selection as a choice that would entail having to “give something up.” After all, the name of my blog is Plant Whatever Brings You Joy, right? Once into Doug’s book, however, I realized how myopic that thought was, and my world expanded into a much deeper understanding of the importance of maintaining native plants in our environment. Pondering what I was reading, I came to realize that planting whatever brings you joy was not the child’s view of, “I’ll have one of these and one of these and one of those,” that (ahem) the nursery industry inadvertently seduces us into thinking is Just Fine. No. It is the wise sage who understands that the selection of one’s plants that truly brings one joy is in the context of making conscious selections that are in keeping with what was there before, creating both continuity and a healthy sustainability by honoring the thousands of years of evolutionary history that preceeded our humble and minute arrival on the scene. See? I know it’s a mouthful and I will freely admit that reading Doug’s book at first overwhelmed me, as in utterly. My first attempt to integrate what I was reading led to both my posts on butterflies, to break down some of the realizations I was having into smaller parts which I might digest and make sense of in increments. I started with the lovely butterflies, and the importance of including host plants for their eggs.

nectaring on butterfly weed

Not as easy to broach is the matter of bugs. I found myself understanding that I’d been conditioned to think that any sign in my garden of leaves being eaten was a “problem.” In my anthropocentric state of unconsciousness (oh, yes, I was) I had never really entertained the idea–as you must admit, there is scarce drawing our attention to the fact–that bugs must eat. Mostly plants.

“…most insect herbivores can only eat plants with which they share an evolutionary history…our native insects will not be able to survive on alien plant species.” –Doug Tallamy

And that far from that being a problem, I was now facing the reality that this was something I not only needed to embrace, but to (shudder) possibly encourage and cultivate. Why? Anthropocentricism really does a grand job at allowing one to become blind to wee small critters that have their rightful place on planet Earth. A place so important that without them many other creatures who are dependent on them for food, would die.

larvae of the giant silk moth

But wait, you say. Isn’t pest-free a good thing? Turns out, not exactly.

It gets bigger.

Imagine the importers who have brought “pest free” plants into our country, touting their “pest freedom” as a Very Good Thing. Uh, not so fast. Apparently what comes with that “perk” is a plant that is introduced into a landscape with no natural enemies. Think kudzu or honeysuckle. Apparently plants that have taken centuries to negotiate their rightful, balanced place in their native country, can go aggressively berserk in a land that holds no such environmental contract. Ditto bugs. (I find myself wondering if those sneaky killer bees that escaped a scientist’s hold which now inhabit our Southern borders, might not have had a balancing force in their rightful home. Get it?)

So now I’ve added some new words to my vocabulary. Like “ornamental aliens.” I am unbelieveably reticent to take this kind of stock of what I have regarded as a very varied garden, but I am facing the likelihood that for as impressed as I was to think of the numbers of different plants that grow on this property I largely suspect that the majority of them are, indeed, ornamental aliens. I have a whole new respect for my hollyhocks, the native violets and even the lowly wild onion that I used to frown upon in the far back corner of the yard when they emerge each spring under the apple tree. Not anymore.

I spoke with Doug on the phone. If I had to distill what I learned into two words it would be complexity and native.

“Norway maple (Acer platanoides), an alien introduced into the ornamental trade from Europe, is now the most common shade tree in North America. As with many ornamental species, it has escaped cultivation and is rapidly displacing native trees.” –Doug Tallamy

(Gulp.)

Apparently by my introducing a healthy dose of native complexity I will do an immense good to my garden, with important ramifications. Probably very little of what was living here prior to civilized cultivation has sustained itself in the face of our arrival. And that is an unconscious violation of the contract this land had with itself. And how dare I?

I realize I’ve been sold a bill of goods. The bill of goods read, “Your yard is a blank canvas. Plant whatever you want.” So not true.

As complex as this garden may seem, it is foreign to native critters, precious bodies that are becoming extinct. What compromise can I offer? And how can I reeducate myself to appreciate the beauties of the native plants of California? To not be appalled at the first sign of Chewing? But to possibly celebrate it instead? How do I face the task of learning which bugs have natural enemies, which ones are beneficial and intrinsic to my garden and which ones are running amok, unchecked, after hitchhiking in on a ship from heaven knows where? It’s daunting, I’m the first to admit. But my moral task is clear.

wood thrush, hit particularly hard by habitat loss

Doug Tallamy’s book Bringing Nature Home is a gift. It’s not the kind of gift wrapped with a pink ribbon and a tiny rose tucked into the bow. It’s the kind of gift that shakes you to your core and sets you on the path of healing. Your garden. Your planet. One plant at a time. Open it.

Love and gardening blessings,
Kathryn xoxo

Posted on September 8th, 2009 by Kathryn
Filed under: Book Notes | 18 Comments »