Actually you can't even pass the entrance to Honeysuckle Cottage without brushing by a large pink flowered English honeysuckle Lonicera periclymenum with its gorgeous fragrance (have you noticed how strong and sweet its fragrance is at dusk compared with the daytime?) and also the huge glossy leaved Giant Burmese honeysuckle L. hildenbrandiana with 15 cm long, wonderfully scented, cream flowers. Honeysuckle is above all the herb of prosperity and of magical healing. For a positive turn in your finances, surround a green candle with a wreath of honeysuckle and light the candle. It's always worth a try (but like all lighted candles don't leave it unattended). The old magical healing usage involved making a woven garland (weaving increases the magic) of the leafy green stems and passing it down the body from head to toes three times before cutting the garland into nine pieces and burning them in a fire.
Wander into the Secret Garden and you will encounter pots of lavender once used in purification magic and to see ghosts, mugwort (try it dried in sleep pillows for some very exciting technicolor dreams, particularly if combined with yarrow Achillea millefolium), sweet woodruff which is considered to be a good herb to carry in your pocket if you are making a fresh start, pots of sage which was used to promote health and well being, to recognise your true partner, and to help attract prosperity, origanums which are said to be strong protectors when made into an infusion with rosemary and mint and sprinkled around the house, masses of different clove pinks for which I have a passion and are considered very protective in magic, and a bush of sweet myrtle for good luck and to attract and hold love. Wild primroses Primula vulgaris are growing in shady moist areas of the Secret Garden and were considered to be very strongly protective in ancient magic.
The gardens beyond are filled with the old heritage roses including big old Tea Rose bushes that are never out of flower for us, and the wonderfully old fashioned looking and very fragrant David Austin roses. Roses are of course associated with love and love potions but they were also used for clairvoyance (in a fragrant tea).
A little further down the path a huge hawthorn tree covers with flowers like snow in spring and the noise of overenthusiastic nectar gathering bees is almost deafening. In magic it was considered a powerful herb of happiness. But in much of England you will be warned not to sleep under a solitary tree, and to walk between two trees growing close together (as they do on Glastonbury Tor in Somerset) is to enter a portal into the realm of fairies and possibly never return.
Beside the hawthorn is one of a number of elderberry trees Sambucus nigra, including the very pretty variegated and golden forms, which are planted throughout the garden. The branch of an elder was often used to make a magic wand. The tree is said to be inhabited by Mother Elder, the spirit of the elder, and the old belief always held that bushes should never be harvested for their lacy white flowers (which make delicious fritters and elderflower 'champagne') or berries (which make a decidedly good imitation of port wine), or cuttings taken, without asking permission of Mother Elder - a counsel we follow very carefully here. It was said that cutting an elder down would result in your house burning, and making making a cradle with the wood would cause the baby to become ill or have it replaced with a changeling. Beyond the elder lies a shady bank of sweet violets which are said to magically attract faithful love and bluebells (the province of fairies and not to be wandered through for fear of being abducted into their world).
On our very sunny northern slope great clumps of various wormwoods thrive adding silver and sparkle to the terraces of herbs With Halloween about to happen, it is well worth remembering that wormwood was traditionally thrown on fires to protect from dangerous spirits.
All sorts of thymes grow there. The leaves were crushed and the scent inhaled to promote inspiration and courage, focus the brain, and dispel melancholy. It was also used in magical potions to see fairies and in purification. (If you are having nightmares consider a sleep pillow containing thyme, lemon verbena, and lavender.)
Through the herb gardens are plants of the grey woolly mullein, once considered to be the source of witch's broomsticks, but in the ancient magic believed to protect against wild animals. And we need it. We may not have lions and tigers but Australia's long drought has driven the swamp wallaby across the range to us and it much prefers midnight feasting on our delicious plants to tough dry native vegetation. The possums have a penchant for rose flowers and privet berries, producing as a by-product a near unremovable staining combination, a wombat has a burrow large enough for a woolly mammoth (well, a slight exaggeration), and even echidnas dine delicately, rolling their spiny little bodies up defensively if we pass too close to the shrubs they shelter beneath. Thankfully most of these animals dislike strongly scented herbs and tend to stay towards the bottom of the property. On the other hand the bower birds, rosella and king parrots, and the wonga pigeons are anything but deterred from our fruit trees including the apples (used in healing and love).
To the east lies a large oak tree and a large 7 m high Bay tree. The oak tree is said to possess the greatest powers in ancient magic and is associated with protection and long life. The bay tree had many powers including healing, clairvoyance, purification and protection. Carrying the fresh leaves was considered to guarantee success. Behind our nursery shop 'The Stillroom' grows a large juniper which is said to be a powerful protector against theft as well as a general herb of protection. Periwinkle wreaths its way as a groundcover in the same area, another herb of protection, and in the shade angelica flourishes, said to protect against infection and to bestow serenity.
But then as I said I'm not really superstitious.
Bye from Oz
PS Do check out my book 'In A Unicorn's Garden: Recreating the mystery and magic of medieval gardens' if this posting is of interest to you. It is a hardback, gorgeously illustrated, 288 pp, published by Murdoch Books and is available from most online book stores.
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