#herbalism

[certainlyceleste]

I believe that the source for this list is “Botanical Medicne for Women’s Health,” a 2010 book written by Aviva Romm, who allegedly has an MD.

I am not about to spend money on this book, but an article about… Bridgerton lists the exact words in the photo as examples of “commonly used emmenagogic herbs,” and cites that book as a source.

Of course, the article goes on to say that most of these herbs are poisonous and describes the liver failure that they could cause.

It ends with an almost hilariously upsetting quote: “Luckily, women today have research-backed, FDA-approved abortion options available. "There's just no excuse to have to turn to that," says Levitt.”

My guess is that someone read this article, read that it was definitely poisonous, and then copied the exact list of items into their picture.

If so, this is almost certainly attempted murder.

Wow.

This meme is a MURDER ATTEMPT.

I am absolutely fucking serious. The original meme, without the big red denial, is someone's attempt to fucking kill people.

There is NO SAFE DOSAGE of pennyroyal oil. Even Mother Earth News says there's no reason to use pennyroyal essential oil for ANYTHING, even topically or as a fragrance, for fuckssake! That should give you some idea about how dangerous it is!

Pennyroyal tea, plant matter in hot water, is a traditional abortifacient. It is *incredibly* dangerous, induces abortion by bringing the body close to organ failure (and frequently pushing the system right over the edge, because dosage is impossible to meter), but I would drink a gallon of it before I took a half-teaspoon of pennyroyal essential oil.

Two teaspoons, taken across 48 hours, has successfully killed someone.

Three teaspoons taken as a single dosage killed the consumer within THREE HOURS.

There is NO SAFE DOSAGE! FOR PENNYROYAL OIL INTERNALLY! NONE!

The person who made this meme is PURPOSEFULLY, ACTIVELY, trying to get desperate people killed!

[wizardsaur]

This is your friendly reminder that herbs aren't inherently safe.

Natural doesn't mean Safe.

Lightning is natural. Opium, therefore heroin and opiate drugs are derived from poppies. Cinnamon oil will burn your skin. Lilies are toxic to cats and will cause organ failure. Activated charcoal will neutralize your prescription medications and literally anything else in your system. St. John's Wort will destroy your serotonin production and mess with your happiness threshold if it DOESNT KILL YOU FIRST.

So anyway.

Do some damn good research every time you go to eat, breathe, bring around your pets, bathe in, or smoke something. Be safe please.

[violetflamesx]

"The world is full of magical things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.” —W.B. Yeats.

[witch-of-the-creek]

Very often I forget that fertility is a sex thing to most people because agriculture and gardening is so much more important to me than sex or even romance

I hear the words fertility ritual and I immediately think of like- praying for a good harvest by like playing an instrument in a field.

Fertility rituals are when you sing or talk to your plants to help them grow more. Fertility rituals is burying bones and ashes and food scraps into the soil as a sacrifice to the plant gods. Fertility rituals are songs and dances and art made to welcome the growing season.

[isaacsapphire]

Thank you! 🐝

Rose genetics and the law of unintended consequences (or, ten rose bushes, reviewed)

I have a number of longposts in the backlog, including updates on a number of garden improvement projects I undertook over the winter, but I kept putting off posting them because there kept being Horrors. However, spring is here - in California anyway - and plants wait for no one.

Over the winter of 2025, as a coping mechanism for the aforementioned Horrors, I got really into roses. Because of who I am as a person, deciding what roses I wanted to buy also made me feel obliged to reconstruct the history of rose breeding, just to make sense of the teeming confusion of the tens of thousands of named rose varieties. Humans have been raising roses for food, medicine, and beauty for untold centuries, and so they've really grown up with us. The history of the development of roses, it turns out, is the history of the development of humanity in miniature.

This post has it all: history, some light phylogeny discussion, material analysis of English folk ballads, a conceptual framework for understanding how different kinds of roses vary and why, a #haul breakdown of what bare-root roses I got and what I thought of them, and some philosophical musings on what it means for an organism to be subjected to a long-term selective breeding process, to be remade wholly in the image of human desire. All that, and pictures of roses, under the cut.

My general region of California is considered to have a good climate for roses, much good may it do us. It never gets too hot or too cold, so they essentially never go out of season, and even though our winters are wet, the rest of the year is fairly dry. This is absolutely critical, because the main problem that makes garden roses hard to grow is fungal disease. Modern roses are incredibly susceptible to fungal diseases, which are caused, roughly, by Damp. This has typically been combated with toxic sprays (though there are now less-toxic options) and aggressive pruning regimens.

Needless to say, this is a ridiculous fucking problem for a plant to have. California natives, by comparison, hate irrigation - they have a natural life cycle involving being dry in summer and wet in winter, like California itself, so if you grow them in a climate resembling their natural range, without too much added water, they will be mostly OK. Roses, as far as I can tell, actually hate all water, including rain and humidity, which is much worse because gardeners do not control the weather. If it rains too often after, say, noon, the rose's leaves might get wet, fail to dry off, get a fungal disease, and die. If there is too much fog, or it is humid, as it is in most of the country in the summer, the rose's leaves might get wet &c. If you have a sprinkler system - you get the idea.

Fungal disease can also weaken roses and make them more prone to insect infestations. This is bad because modern garden roses are, without any help from The Weather, already incredibly prone to infestations from aphids, mites, beetles, and a mite-borne disease undescriptively called "rose rosette disease", which produces a habitus that I can only describe as "rose bush eldritch horror".

Now, this may all have you asking one question. Probably, that question is "why are you so obsessed with a plant that wants so badly to die?" I will not be answering this question today. Instead, I will be answering a different question, which is "Why do modern garden roses suck so bad?"

Now, if roses are subject to some manner of curse, then it isn't a family curse, phylogenically speaking. Roses - genus Rosa species extremely miscellaneous - are a member of the family Rosaceae, which contains a massive number of useful and delightful plants. It is possibly the most economically important family of plants next to the brassicas. The rose family brings us not just roses, but apples, strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, plums, peaches, apricots, and almonds. And the wild rose, untouched by human efforts, is a lot like a raspberry, actually.

Its flowers have only five petals, in pink or white. It’s got thorny stems that form thickets, and oval (or, technically, lanceolate) leaves with lightly serrated edges. Its flowers are fragrant, which is an adaptation to their long and necessary coexistence with pollinators and other insects - fragrance serves as a chemical signal for insects to "come here" or "go away", depending. The wild rose is hardy, like all wild plants, tolerant of various environmental problems that would kill a garden rose: shade, salt, normal levels of ambient insect and fungal disease pressure, drought, being consistently rained on in the afternoon or evening. It may reproduce asexually from suckers - strong shoots from near the base of the plant - and this makes it able to withstand browsing pressure from e.g. deer. (Put a pin in that.) It also can reproduce in the normal way, by having its flowers pollinated and forming seeds, which are borne in prominent reddish-orange fruits called "hips".

This is not a rose I bought, but here’s Rosa gymnocarpa, a California native rose. It’s a wood rose, so it’s shade-tolerant, and it’s often found in redwood forests specifically, so it tolerates relatively dry soil and very acidic soil.

Honorable mention: Rosa gymnocarpa (wood rose)

Source: Calscape

A raspberry plant in flower, for comparison. Source

The wild rose has another trait, which may be surprising to those who have only ever seen garden roses: it blooms once, usually in the summer. This is typical of flowers, which almost always have a season, for the exact same reason fresh fruit has a season. Flowering plants are on a tight schedule: they need to finish up their blooming, so they can set fruit, so they can get their seeds out before winter, in case the frost kills them off. And mostly we’re used to that: tulips are for spring, so you don't expect a tulip to make a second showing in fall, or to flower continuously throughout the summer. But roses have been bred to do this, and have done it for centuries, for so long we barely remember what it was like when "roses blooming" was a time of year, an event.

It's possible that for most of human history, roses were all the more treasured for being fleeting, which simply isn't an aspect of how we moderns understand roses. I am constantly subjected to traditional ballads at home, both in English and German, so I am very aware that multiple Child ballads mention roses as a way of placing the events of the ballad at a particular time of year. In 'Lady Isobel and the Elf-Knight', a song traditionally associated with May Day, one version of the chorus references the events as occurring 'as the rose is blown'. And at the start of 'Tam Lin', the protagonist meets her fairy lover while plucking a double rose, is "laid down among... the roses red" by him, and finishes the ballad on Halloween night heavily pregnant with his child. The course of the ballad is inextricably intertwined with the course of the seasons, and the bloom of roses is synonymous with early summer. (There's so much symbolism in 'Tam Lin', but especially around roses. Can I interest you in tam-lin.org at this time?)

European religious literature even uses "a rose e'er blooming" as a purely figurative phrase, something impossible and magical enough to be a metonym for the Virgin Mary - but in the modern era, most garden roses are ever-blooming. The perpetual-blooming rose is not the natural state of the rose plant, but a kind of technology that had to be developed. And I don't know, I just think that's neat.

So what have we learned? The wild rose is: once-blooming, tough, possibly shade-tolerant depending on species, very thorny, bearing simple pink or white five-petaled flowers, that are fragrant, pollinator-friendly, and produce fruit readily enough. In short, a practical, normal sort of plant.

The garden rose is…not that. There’s no other way to put this: the modern garden rose is the wild rose, but bimboified.

Now, in case today is your first day on the Internet - well, first of all, welcome, it’s bad here - but secondly, bimboification is a niche fetish where someone is transformed into a hypersexualized version of themselves that is also very stupid. Plant domestication is obviously analogous. I didn’t originate this joke; in fact, I reblogged a joke like this just last week.

Roses are like this but even more so. Like, wheat is clearly bimboified. Its sexual parts (seeds) have been remade, swollen to ludicrous proportions, and wheat is probably worse at being a plant than wild grasses. But we created modern wheat from wild grass because it was more useful that way, and wheat could in theory survive and spread without human cultivation. Roses are Like That purely because we wanted to make them a more perfect decorative object. Centuries of intensive selection pressure for appearance have rendered roses useless as an independent plant: they are so disease-prone they need extensive intervention to even survive, and they are often physically incapable of propagating themselves - one of the basic features of plants! - without human aid. That’s plant bimboification.

Source: Heirloom Roses. This one is called 'Oranges 'n' Lemons. Hardly seems like the same plant!

Here are just a few examples, of what we've done to roses. Humans love rose petals - eating them, distilling them into perfume, smelling them, just looking at them - so the garden rose has massive flowers that are so stuffed with petals that pollinators cannot get at their centers, rendering the rose incapable of reproducing except possibly with the help of a human equipped with a paintbrush. Humans love bright colors, so modern roses come in every color their natural pigments allow. Garden roses are often - though not always - less thorny than their wild cousins, because thorns are inconvenient to humans, and so have been somewhat bred out.

And what’s just as important is what was bred out of wild roses in the process of becoming modern roses - by accident. As mentioned above, modern roses are often useless to pollinators, and, not unrelatedly, can’t reproduce without human help. They often lose their fragrance, if not specifically bred for it. They are very susceptible to disease, because gardeners can keep alive, through sheer stubbornness, plants that natural selection would have culled. Likewise, they need full sun where many wild roses can get by even in the shade of big evergreens, and they can't tolerate nearly as much cold, heat, or salt exposure as their wild relatives.

This 'use it or lose it' thing, by the way, is a general principle of selective processes like plant breeding, or like evolution. If you have two independent traits, A and B, and you select hard for A, then B is likely to gradually drop out of the population, simply because the subset of A carriers that also have B is likely to be small. It's pure statistics. (It essentially is a human-created population bottleneck.) The more intense and ruthless the selection pressure, the stronger the effect. Evolution cares a lot about seed production and hardly at all about color, so wild roses are plain but make enormous rose hips; humans like beautiful roses the color of sunsets, and are indifferent to seed production, so modern roses don’t make hips at all. The failure to select for eventually becomes an implicit selection pressure against.

(Highly-bred organisms are thus less, I guess, well-rounded genetically even before you get to issues of inbreeding, and if you assume there is no biological link between your selected-for traits and other ridealong traits, e.g. domestication syndrome. Genetics is complicated!)

One adapted wild-type trait that - I speculate - was not bred out, due to its direct usefulness to humans, was the ability of roses to grow back vigorously from having leaves or branches removed. This is, it seems to me, an adaptation to herbivore browsing - if you are a rose with minimal regrowth ability, and a deer chews on half your canes, it’s curtains for you. But humans also fully remove half of the canes of their garden roses every winter - it’s critical to controlling the fungal disease that so plagues them. Specifically, pruning improves airflow through the plant, which evaporates the water that keeps falling on the leaves from the sky. (You know. The rain, that roses both hate and need to live.) In some sense, we are acting as caretakers here, shaping the plant in inscrutable ways for its own good. But to the plant, we are basically deer: just another in a long line of animals that want to steal its leaves. Unbelievable! It needs those! Fuck you too, buddy: here’s a faceful of thorns.

Truly, a tale as old as time.

This brings me to my first actual rose review, a kind of bridge between wild roses and the world of cultivated roses.

#1: Rosa rugosa, probably "Hansa"

Source: the author's yard.

This is a sucker - a vigorous young ground-level shoot - from an unnamed rosebush from my mother's house. I say "probably 'Hansa'" because we have no idea what this actually is, only that it is a rugosa hybrid, purchased from an unknown nursery in the Midwest sometime during the Bush administration.

'Hybrid rugosas' are crosses between garden-type roses and a wild rose species called Rosa rugosa, which is native to much of Asia. This particular rose bush has many traits carried over from its wild parent: it's violently fragrant, a glorious sweet-spicy combo that smells to me like childhood and home; it has wrinkly leaves (characteristic of Rosa rugosa in particular); its stems are practically coated in prickles; and it's quite tolerant of shade, drought, and salt (Rosa rugosa is a beach rose).

The main virtue evinced by this rose, derived from its wild parent, is the same reason that it is still here in my garden: it is extremely difficult to kill. My mother, after hearing me say I wanted this specific rose bush at my house the same way it had been at my childhood home, dug up a sucker from her instance, put it in a bag with some wet dirt, carried it by hand on a multi-hour cross-country plane flight, and handed it off to me. Once I received it, I stuck it in a pot, because I was ripping up my lawn and had nowhere to plant it, and mostly forgot about it, because I was busy ripping up my entire lawn. It lost its leaves suspiciously early in the fall. ("That's not good," my mother said, over FaceTime, brow furrowed. "Are the rest of your roses doing that?")

But as the saying doesn't go, "where there's green cambium, there's hope", and I continued to take care of it throughout the winter. I eventually even remembered to put it in the ground. It is now March, and in defiance of the mockery of certain judgemental housemates, who said things like "why do you have a stick in a pot?" and "it's giving 'dead', my guy", this "stick" has now decided to become a rosebush, and has a grand total of (approximately) twenty-five leaves.

Like I said: extremely difficult to kill. It is currently planted 10-ish feet from the base of a redwood tree, a tough environment where some hardy garden-style roses have nonetheless been known to thrive. Given that its resurrection has occurred entirely while it was planted under the redwood, it doesn't seem too mad about its environment.

Review: holy shit, it’s alive???

#2: Zéphirine Drouhin, the "old garden rose"

Source: Heirloom Roses

Rosarians have conceived of many groupings of garden roses, based on known ancestry, phenotype, genetic studies, and Vibes, but one major breakpoint is those bred before 1867, the "old garden roses", and after 1867, the "modern garden roses".

The old garden roses were derived mostly from ancient European and Middle Eastern stock, which had themselves been created from wild roses centuries prior. For example, this is Rosa x alba, an ancient European rose strain; it was used as the heraldic badge of the medieval House of York during the English conflict known as the War of the Roses.

Some of these roses are perpetual-blooming, a trait introduced as late as the eighteenth century, and which is entirely due to trade contact with China: as far as I can tell, the genes for strong reblooming only come from the Chinese rose-breeding tradition, which was itself centuries old by that point. So the modern Western concept of perpetual-blooming roses as the default kind of rose - like so many other aspects of modernity - is a direct result of Europeans cribbing from everybody else.

Interestingly, France was a major center for rose development during the early modern period. You can see it in the way old garden roses are named: overwhelmingly after some eminent madame or monsieur. This is probably connected to the fact that Josephine, Napoleon Bonaparte’s empress, was a rose fiend: she had two hundred and fifty new varieties of rose to be brought to her gardens at Château de Malmaison, which was probably pretty much all the named varieties of rose that existed then, and many of which were new to European cultivation at that time. Again, this represented a massive inflow of rose genes that were previously restricted to other countries or continents entirely. Inextricably, these gardens also represent the proceeds of early modern global trade, and of empire: Napoleon, on campaign abroad, himself sent her hundreds of specimens of flowering plants, and the French navy confiscated plants and seeds from ships captured and sea and sent them to her.

Anyway, Zéphirine Drouhin, created at the end of the "old garden rose" period and named for some now-forgotten madame or mademoiselle, is highly fragrant - one of the few roses said to really perfume the air - with a vibrant but old-fashioned color palette. (Apricot and yellow roses were also characteristic of the Chinese rose gene pool, and so were significantly less common in old garden roses.) Zéphirine Drouhin is also thornless, a rare trait that we nonetheless see in some old-fashioned garden roses, and a few modern garden roses as well.

Old garden roses have a variable but generally good level of disease resistance. Zéphirine Drouhin in particular, gets something of a bad rap for poor disease resistance; English rose breeder David Austin Roses says, tactfully, that it "prefers warmer climates" (versus, one must assume, rainy England) and that "controlling disease can be a problem". By this you should understand them to mean that it is a whiny little pissbaby that constantly gets blackspot, a diva that will defoliate at the drop of a hat (or the drop of, uh, water).

However, unlike certain other newer roses I will mention later, I have found Zéphirine Drouhin to be pretty healthy so far. I received this rose, like many in this post, "bare root", basically a stick, dormant in a bag of wood shavings. Upon being planted in a part-sun area, it has leafed out with only a scattering of aphids to show in terms of disease.

Review: So far, so good. Looking forward to the fragrance.

#3 and 4: 'Mister Lincoln' and 'Fragrant Cloud', the hybrid tea brothers

Remember how I mentioned that 1868 is the breakpoint between "old garden roses" and "modern garden roses"? That year marked the invention of a new type of rose, the 'hybrid tea', that is in some sense THE rose, the ARCHETYPE of a rose. If you ask someone who knows nothing about roses to draw 'a rose' - if you look up clipart of a rose - a hybrid tea rose is what you'll get.

Source: Star Nursery

This is Mister Lincoln, and although it was developed as late as the 1960s, it has the classic hybrid tea rose form. Hybrid teas have a very distinctive shape, described as "high-pointed", with a spiral of unfurling petals that curl at the edges, and they're borne singly on long stems, making them great for cutting and putting into vases and bouquets. They are not always strongly fragrant, and they are not generally very disease-resistant. They come in a very wide variety of colors, intense and subtle. They are reblooming.

Hybrid teas were developed by another East-meets-West cross, when the Chinese tea roses, freshly imported from Guangzhou in the early 19th century, were bred with the old garden roses. Tea roses have the same iconic form as the hybrid teas; they have those unique, pastel shades that were previously quite absent from European rose stocks; they smell like a fresh cup of tea. All these traits they impart to hybrid teas. Hybrid teas have been very popular ever since, and have been subject to a great deal of selective breeding for color and form.

Hybrid teas don't generally spark joy, to me. I find the 'cartoon rose' shape kind of twee, honestly. And the reputation for lack of disease tolerance puts me off. But I heard Mister Lincoln was incredibly fragrant, and that drew me in. Likewise Fragrant Cloud (1967), which also has the charming feature of being a violent neon coral that is allegedly very difficult to photograph.

Source: Heirloom Roses

“It'll be fine," I thought. "How much fungal disease can it get? It's not like it's humid here."

Never again. My trust is destroyed; fuck hybrid teas.

please, my son, he is very sick

This is my poor Mister Lincoln, planted from bare-root in mid-December. It has three different fungal diseases, and also an aphid infestation I can't seem to get it to shake. It looks like one of those diagrams of a liver in a medical textbook that has fatty liver and cirrhosis and liver cancer all at once, just so you can see what all the diseases look like. This is a rose that has every problem! No other rose in this flower bed comes close to having every problem! 'Munstead Wood' is also a modern garden rose (though from a very different lineage - see my review below) and it has no fungal diseases and not a single aphid!

Well, maybe the other hybrid tea I bought is doing better... well, nope, it rained last week and Fragrant Cloud has powdery mildew.

Review: Come on, man.

#5 Unidentified ‘sunset’ rose

I didn’t buy these roses; they came with my house. As a consequence, I have no idea what they are, but I am now intimately familiar with their traits, and I think they are very indicative of both the high and low points of modern garden roses.

On the surface level, the fact that these rose bushes are still with us is an impressive proof of their persistence under adversity. When I bought the house, these roses were being choked to death. Lily-of-the-nile had been planted way too close to them, and then permitted to grow unchecked and undivided for many years; their roots were completely infiltrated and surrounded with lily roots. The lily roots had also damaged the irrigation lines, which were dribbling uncontrolled amounts of water into the shared root zone. So when I excavated these roses, the whole area smelled strongly of rot, with visible mold throughout; the roots were fully wet even in the heat of August. The roses were also infested with blackspot, not surprisingly. I wasn’t sure if what I was doing was too little, too late.

But when they finally got some drainage, some direct sunlight, and some relief from the brutal root competition, they did start growing back, and even blooming. Come winter, I pruned hard, defoliated, and applied neem oil consistently. And they’ve made a comeback!

Source: these blooms are actually my roses.

They bloom, and they’re beautiful. They do this ombre thing, where the buds are bright yellow and as they open they go from yellow, to orange, and finally to red.

The growth is fairly vigorous, with no powdery mildew no matter how rainy it gets. But their foliage definitely suffers from blackspot, and occasional rose rust; the spores are probably ambiently present in the soil now, and they can’t quite seem to defend themselves, even with ample help from organic fungicides like neem oil.

They also have no fragrance. They smell like nothing. And that’s the standard modern garden rose in a nutshell, I think: beautiful color and form, shaky disease resistance, little fragrance. It’s a little sad, honestly.

Review: Okay, this one is really pretty, actually.

Interlude: Pesticides and the law of unintended consequences

So, yeah, you can sort of see how roses got a reputation for being picky divas. I can only imagine how bad this sort of thing must get in places that get (gasp!) rain or humidity in the summer.

Now, having created plants that are too disease-ridden to live, rose-lovers came up with practical and effective solutions to the disease problem they created. For the past century or so, the go-to fix for our increasingly disease-prone rose population has been chemicals: regular applications of synthetic insecticide and fungicide sprays, as well as plenty of fertilizer and herbicide to feed the roses and kill any competing weeds.

However, recall the theme of this post: the law of unintended consequences. In agriculture, the development of modern pesticides and fertilizers has been genuinely miraculous; the Green Revolution is estimated to have saved a billion people from starvation in the latter half of the twentieth century. Saving a billion people! Can you even begin to conceive of what it would be like to save a billion people, even grapple with the moral weight of that act? I know I can't; the number is simply too large for our moral intuitions to handle, I think. So I'm hesitant to bad-mouth pesticides and fertilizers too much.

But they do have massive downsides. Chemical fertilizers leach into the groundwater and cause algal blooms that make entire bodies of water go anoxic, rendering them uninhabitable to fish and the rest of the aquatic food chain. Insecticides are probably responsible for colony collapse, which endangers the pollinators that we rely on for our food supply.

And, well, even if you don't give a shit about the natural world - you are a part of the natural world. You are an animal, with all the frailty that implies. Our bodies use many of the same ancient metabolic pathways as insects and plants; the majority of your DNA is shared with a banana. And because you are an animal, it is very difficult indeed to create an insecticide that will poison other animals without poisoning you too, at least a little. Herbicides are somehow still worse, despite the more distant biological relationship between humans and dandelions: Roundup, for instance, is linked to non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, which has led to Monsanto paying out massive legal settlements to cancer patients who used their products.

So if we can't grow roses without coating them in poison, maybe we should just… not do that? Go back to growing super-hardy nearly-wild roses like rugosas, forgoing forever the elegance and sublime color of a modern rose?

Give up this? ‘Glowing Peace’, Heirloom Roses

Not so fast! Maybe this technological problem has a technological solution. If we bred roses so that they sucked, maybe we should just not do that! Make different roses! Make roses that don't suck!

#6-#8, ‘Ebb Tide', 'Eden', and 'Lavender Crush': roses that don't suck

Over the last fifty years, people have become increasingly aware of the impacts of modern lifestyles upon our health and the health of the planet and its ecosystems. So maybe this has made the public less willing to buy roses that need to be treated constantly with toxic sprays. Or maybe it's just that growing disease-prone roses is an enormous pain in the ass. Spray, prune, spray, defoliate, fertilize, spray, fertilize, spray, water - but not too much! Oops, powdery mildew. Defoliate and spray some more.

So the genetic health of the newer varieties of garden roses is greatly improved. The two hybrid teas I struggled with above were bred in the 1960s. All the named rose varieties in this section were bred since the 1990s or later: Eden in 1997, Ebb Tide in 2004, and Lavender Crush, the baby of the group, was introduced in 2016. All of them are vibrantly healthy and quite vigorous; Ebb Tide and Eden are shade-tolerant too, and Lavender Crush is allegedly very winter-hardy. After a scant two months in the ground, they've started to put out flower buds. And they keep some of the glorious color and form of older roses. Look at them!

Source: Heirloom Roses.

I don't mean to say all 20th century roses are bad and disease-ridden. I also have purchased 'New Dawn' (introduced 1930), due to it being the fifteen-dollarest rose at the Home Depot. (My toxic trait is that I am an absolute sucker for a good deal. I don't go into TJ Maxx anymore; it's too dangerous.) 'New Dawn' has all the ancestral, throwback traits I laud here: shade-tolerance, fragrance, disease resistance. It even brings in the pollinators! But it seems to me there's been a noticeable uptick in the quality of newer rose introductions, particularly when it comes to disease resistance. I'm not wired into the professional rose world to know what that is; I'm Literally Just Some Guy. But it's a good trend.

Review: I am so excited for the buds to open, you have no idea.

#9: 'Double Drift': the 'landscape' rose

Wait, no, I take that back. These roses have too much ease of care. Put some back.

The Drift rose has one virtue: you cannot kill it with an axe. Literally.

This rose was planted right at the foot of a redwood tree in my garden, because the previous owner of my house was an idiot. This is a terrifically bad setup for roses and redwoods: redwoods acidify the soil, and suck up water and nutrients aggressively, leaving little for surrounding plants, and of course they provide dense shade. Roses hate the acid, the dry and low-nutrient soil, and the shade; this plant never bloomed all last summer. For their part, the redwoods hate having anything planted in their inner root zone - their roots are relatively shallow for such a large tree. This is not a good situation for anyone, so I hacked this rose back to the ground, dug out as much of the root ball as I dared, and in my naivete thought that would be the end of it. Well, it has grown back. Now I am faced with the dilemma of whether to risk root injury to my redwood tree, or just let the rose be, bloomless as it is. Probably the latter is better for the redwood tree, on the whole. Maybe it’ll get choked out if I don’t water it? Anyone’s guess, really.

Drift roses, introduced in 2006, are the product of an amateur rose breeder whose main goal was to produce easy-care roses that flower generously and repeatedly. They are the archetypal member of a group of roses called “landscape roses”, so named because instead of being demanding prima donnas suited only to those who love roses enough to take on the Rose Tasks, they’re just another pretty shrub in the landscape.

And I will say this for them: in that bad, fungal spore–inundated flower bed I mentioned, the drift roses (plus Munstead Wood, see below) are notably free of fungal disease.

Also, I think that's leaf tissue proliferating at the center of the bottom left bloom?? A rare but harmless growth disorder of flowering plants.

This comes at a cost, of course, at least if you’re a snob like me. I don’t think drift roses are very interesting-looking - though of course they come in a wide variety of colors, the better to coordinate with the color scheme of your house! - and they are generally, tragically, without fragrance. While I can’t complain about anything that gets US gardeners to use less pesticides, they are barely roses to me. They are, in fact, the closest roses come to being an inanimate object, a decorative thing you can just plonk down in your garden wherever, like a tacky concrete statue. They’re a commodity; the enchantment is gone. I wouldn’t rip them out where they’re well-sited, but I sure wouldn’t plant more.

Now, this is incredibly mean to people who love landscape roses, but here goes. I’m reminded of a thread from r/Ceanothus, the California native gardening subreddit, that is now burned into my brain. OP asks for a native shrub recommendation, but not just any native shrub. OP wants a native shrub that will grow very tall, but also stay very narrow - 1’ wide in places. OP needs a native shrub that will grow thick and vigorous, to block out their view of the neighbors. OP needs this thing to be evergreen; OP presumably wants low water inputs. And OP needs all this, in a shrub that will grow in full shade.

In fairness, OP was polite about it, and this is a common problem for urban gardeners. The dark, untended canyon between buildings is a very common phenomenon in Californian cities. I too have a narrow, shaded side yard containing a tiny strip of crappy, gravelly dirt, that I’d love to grow something in: how do you think I found this post? Dear reader, I am very much at that devil's sacrament.

And the ceanothusheads of r/Ceanothus tried gamely. But one commenter replied with something that fully changed how I think about gardening:

Source: Reddit

Sometimes, what you need is not a living organism, with its own needs, that will change over time in ways you may not endorse, that interacts with the world around it. Sometimes what you really want is a man-made object. Sometimes what you want to grow in your tall, narrow, lightless, bone-dry side yard, for your privacy requirements, is a fence. And that’s what I think about drift roses. In Mediterranean and desert climates, as long as there's enough sun, you can always fall back on planting a succulent. But not every location can grow succulents outdoors year-round. In temperate climates, drift roses could probably be successfully replaced with a particularly attractive boulder. Or, if what you want is a smart-looking, easy-care hedge: consider a fence.

Review: I’d maybe rather plant a fence a succulent.

#10: 'Munstead Wood': the old English rose, reloaded

‘Munstead Wood’, my final acquisition, is a credit to another major modern rose breeding program, this time out of England: David Austin Roses. The main idea of the David Austin rose-breeding project seems to be combining the particular charms of traditional English old garden roses - their fragrance, their romantic, sophisticated forms - with the virtues of modern roses - continuous blooming, a wide range of highly Instagrammable colors - plus disease-tolerance that twenty-first century gardeners now expect. And judging by their singular impact on the contemporary rose market, they seem to have been very successful at that goal. The Reddit reviews are glowing, the forums are abuzz for their hottest new releases (Dannahue restock wen?), their most popular roses are often sold out, and other rose sellers have catalog filters for 'English shrub roses' that allegedly share the looks and fragrance of David Austin's best.

From the author's camera roll. 'I can't believe it's not Dave [sic] Austin!'

Their marketing is also very slick. Their website is very informative, with separate filters for various kinds of roses you might want to buy ('Best for fragrance', 'For a shady spot', 'Thornless or nearly so'), all the rose varieties have literary or historical names or else are named after charming British locations, and are all beautifully photographed in their idyllic show garden, and the prose is carefully engineered to incite lust in the winter-weary gardener. They even do periodic drops of new roses, like a sneaker company.

So last November, I allowed myself to buy one David Austin rose, 'Munstead Wood'.

Source: David Austin Roses

'Munstead Wood' is really gorgeous, I think, blooming in a deep burgundy color. The website claims the fragrance is "Old Rose, with fruity notes of blackberry, blueberry and damson".

An interesting fact about 'Munstead Wood' is that it is actually region-locked. David Austin Roses sells roses in both the US and UK (and maybe other places; sorry I am so American), but the climate of the UK has been changing, with more extreme weather events and even more rain. And you know how it is with roses and the rain. 'Munstead Wood' was no longer able to thrive, and has packed up its little rucksack and gone out to explore the world as a lone vagabond - specifically, America.

So how is it doing here? Great, actually. It may have been rained on every day for the past week, but at least it's not in England, I guess.

'Munstead Wood' has no fungal disease. It looks like it's never even heard of fungal disease. I'm pretty impressed! I can't actually tell you whether the roses are good, but this is a pretty good plant, which is a good start.

Review: I'm holding myself back from buying more David Austin roses right now. God help me, I have two more open full- to part-sun spots in my garden right now.

David Austin, "Lady of Shalott". Call me the Lady of Shalott the way I'm languishing in my tower, gazing only at the mere reflections of the real world (stuck inside, looking at my phone, because of the rain) and am about to throw myself in the river with longing (to be out in the garden)

[astra-ravana]

Magick Oil Recipes

This is going to be another long post but here are various basic magick oil recipes based on various traditions, including hoodoo, witchcraft, ceremonial magick, and chaos magick. These oils can be used for anointing candles, tools, sigils, spells, and personal empowerment. Keep in mind these are simple recipes that reflect the necessary ingredients needed. So, do your own research, experiment, and create your own powerful recipes over time.

I do recognize some well known oils are not on my list and I plan to add more here in the future. If you have a request for an oil, just comment or DM me. 🖤

Prosperity & Money Oils💰

⛤Money Drawing Oil⛤

Ingredients:

• Cinnamon (wealth & attraction)

• Bay leaf (success & prosperity)

• Basil (steady income)

• Patchouli (physical money)

• Carrier oil (olive, grapeseed, or almond)

Effects: Attracts money, business success, financial stability.

⛤Fast Luck Oil⛤

Ingredients:

• Wintergreen (speed)

• Cinnamon (attraction)

• Five-finger grass (luck in all endeavors)

• Gold flakes (wealth energy)

• Carrier oil (jojoba or sunflower)

Effects: Brings rapid good fortune in gambling, business, and unexpected financial gains.

⛤Wealth & Abundance Oil⛤

Ingredients:

• Frankincense (spiritual wealth)

• Myrrh (long-term prosperity)

• Bergamot (success in business)

• Bayberry (attracts material wealth)

• Carrier oil (avocado or coconut)

Effects: Ensures financial stability, long-term prosperity, and steady income.

⛤Business Success Oil⛤

Ingredients:

• Bergamot (success in money matters)

• Cinnamon (financial attraction)

• Bay leaf (victory)

• Chamomile (prosperity)

• Carrier oil (grapeseed or jojoba)

Effects: Attracts customers, strengthens business growth, and enhances career opportunities.

⛤Road to Prosperity Oil⛤

Ingredients:

• Abre Camino (removes financial blockages)

• Basil (wealth and abundance)

• Orange peel (good fortune)

• Ginger (fast action)

• Carrier oil (sunflower)

Effects: Clears obstacles to financial growth and opens doors for wealth opportunities.

⛤Money Magnet Oil⛤

Ingredients:

• Lodestone chips (money attraction)

• Patchouli (physical cash manifestation)

• Vetiver (long-term financial stability)

• Frankincense (spiritual prosperity)

• Carrier oil (avocado or olive)

Effects: Strengthens money-drawing spells, attracts financial stability, and amplifies manifestation work.

Love & Attraction Oils🌹

⛤Love Drawing Oil⛤

Ingredients:

• Rose petals (romantic love)

• Jasmine (sensual attraction)

• Vanilla (sweetening relationships)

• Patchouli (lust & passion)

• Carrier oil (sweet almond)

Effects: Attracts love, deepens romance, strengthens existing relationships.

⛤Come to Me Oil⛤

Ingredients:

• Red rose (love)

• Catnip (draws lovers in)

• Cardamom (passionate encounters)

• Orange peel (joyful attraction)

• Carrier oil (grapeseed)

Effects: Draws a specific person to you in love or relationships.

⛤Passion & Lust Oil⛤

Ingredients:

• Cinnamon (heat & desire)

• Ginger (sexual stimulation)

• Ylang-ylang (aphrodisiac)

• Hibiscus (erotic attraction)

• Carrier oil (sesame or coconut)

Effects: Ignites passion, strengthens sexual energy, increases attraction.

⛤Sweetening Oil⛤

Ingredients:

• Honey (love and attraction)

• Vanilla bean (sensual sweetness)

• Lavender (peaceful romance)

• Orange blossom (happiness in love)

• Carrier oil (sweet almond)

Effects: Sweetens relationships, encourages loving communication, and softens tensions between partners.

⛤Commitment Oil⛤

Ingredients:

• Rose petals (devotion and fidelity)

• Myrrh (sacred bonds)

• Chamomile (harmony in marriage)

• Jasmine (romantic attraction)

• Carrier oil (grapeseed or olive)

Effects: Strengthens commitment, encourages proposals, and deepens long-term love bonds.

⛤Irresistible Attraction Oil⛤

Ingredients:

• Catnip (draws in lovers)

• Cinnamon (sexual energy)

• Hibiscus (lust and beauty)

• Ylang-Ylang (magnetic sensuality)

• Carrier oil (jojoba)

Effects: Enhances personal magnetism, boosts charm, and makes the wearer irresistible to others.

Protection & Banishing Oils🛡️

⛤Fiery Wall of Protection Oil⛤

Ingredients:

• Dragon’s blood resin (spiritual shielding)

• Frankincense (purification)

• Black pepper (banishing)

• Rue (warding off evil)

• Carrier oil (olive or castor)

Effects: Creates a powerful barrier against negativity, psychic attacks, and curses.

⛤Banishing Oil⛤

Ingredients:

• Wormwood (drives away spirits)

• Black pepper (protective force)

• Lemon peel (removes negativity)

• Cayenne pepper (fast action)

• Carrier oil (castor or olive)

Effects: Removes unwanted influences, spirits, and toxic energy.

⛤Uncrossing Oil⛤

Ingredients:

• Hyssop (spiritual cleansing)

• Lemon verbena (purification)

• Eucalyptus (removes hexes)

• Camphor (clears stagnant energy)

• Carrier oil (coconut or mineral)

Effects: Breaks hexes, jinxes, and bad luck.

⛤Evil Eye Protection Oil⛤

Ingredients:

• Rue (warding off negative energy)

• Black tourmaline chips (protection)

• Bay leaves (shielding)

• Frankincense (spiritual purification)

• Carrier oil (olive)

Effects: Protects against jealousy, gossip, and the evil eye.

⛤Reversal Oil⛤

Ingredients:

• Black salt (repels negativity)

• Lemon (purification)

• Eucalyptus (removes curses)

• Agrimony (reverses hexes)

• Carrier oil (coconut)

Effects: Reverses curses, jinxes, and psychic attacks back to the sender.

⛤Guardian Spirit Oil⛤

Ingredients:

• Angelica root (guardian energy)

• White sage (spiritual defense)

• Lavender (calm protective energy)

• Myrrh (ancestral guidance)

• Carrier oil (jojoba)

Effects: Invokes spirit guides, strengthens personal energy shields, and offers divine protection.

Power, Manifestation, & Influence Oils🙌

⛤Crown of Success Oil⛤

Ingredients:

• Bay leaf (triumph)

• Frankincense (spiritual mastery)

• High John root (power & influence)

• Sandalwood (leadership)

• Carrier oil (jojoba or sunflower)

Effects: Increases success in career, academics, and personal achievements.

⛤Commanding Oil⛤

Ingredients:

• Licorice root (domination)

• Calamus root (persuasion)

• Bay leaf (authority)

• Ginger (forcefulness)

• Carrier oil (olive or castor)

Effects: Enhances personal power, influences others, and asserts dominance.

⛤Road Opener Oil⛤

Ingredients:

• Abre Camino (removes blockages)

• Lemon (clears obstacles)

• Orange peel (brings new opportunities)

• Ginger (adds momentum)

• Carrier oil (jojoba or sweet almond)

Effects: Removes obstacles, opens paths for success, clears stagnation.

⛤Mastery Oil⛤

Ingredients:

• Frankincense (spiritual elevation)

• Myrrh (wisdom and insight)

• High John the Conqueror root (mastery and control)

• Bay leaf (success)

• Carrier oil (almond)

Effects: Enhances personal power, strengthens leadership abilities, and aids in mastering skills.

⛤Psychic Domination Oil⛤

Ingredients:

• Calamus root (persuasion)

• Licorice root (control and authority)

• Clove (mental influence)

• Ginger (power boost)

• Carrier oil (olive)

Effects: Strengthens mental influence, persuasion, and domination over others.

⛤Success & Victory Oil⛤

Ingredients:

• Bay laurel (winning energy)

• Bergamot (luck and success)

• Frankincense (high achievement)

• Dragon’s blood (empowerment)

• Carrier oil (sunflower)

Effects: Ensures success in competitions, exams, legal matters, and career goals.

Cleansing & Spiritual Oils🔮

⛤Florida Water Oil⛤

Ingredients:

• Lemon (purification)

• Lavender (calming spiritual energy)

• Orange blossom (uplifting)

• Rosemary (clearing negativity)

• Carrier oil (alcohol base or sunflower)

Effects: Used for spiritual cleansing, aura clearing, and purification.

⛤Psychic Vision Oil⛤

Ingredients:

• Mugwort (enhances visions)

• Star anise (clairvoyance)

• Lavender (calms the mind)

• Wormwood (opens third eye)

• Carrier oil (grapeseed or olive)

Effects: Enhances psychic abilities, intuition, and lucid dreaming.

⛤Spirit Communication Oil⛤

Ingredients:

• Myrrh (spirit world connection)

• Dittany of Crete (manifestation of spirits)

• Mugwort (enhances mediumship)

• Sandalwood (deepens trance states)

• Carrier oil (jojoba or coconut)

Effects: Aids in contacting spirits, ancestors, and guides.

⛤Divine Blessing Oil⛤

Ingredients:

• Frankincense (connection to divine beings)

• Lavender (spiritual peace)

• Rose (angelic guidance)

• White sage (cleansing)

• Carrier oil (coconut or jojoba)

Effects: Invokes celestial guidance, brings blessings, and strengthens spiritual connections.

⛤Lunar Empowerment Oil⛤

Ingredients:

• Jasmine (moon magic)

• Mugwort (dream work and divination)

• Sandalwood (spiritual attunement)

• Silver flakes (moon energy)

• Carrier oil (grapeseed)

Effects: Enhances lunar magick, psychic abilities, and dream work.

⛤Elemental Balancing Oil⛤

Ingredients:

• Fire: Cinnamon (passion)

• Water: Blue lotus (intuition)

• Earth: Patchouli (stability)

• Air: Lavender (mental clarity)

• Carrier oil (almond)

Effects: Balances elemental energies, aligns chakras, and stabilizes emotions.

⛤Black Cat Oil⛤

Ingredients:

• Patchouli (attraction)

• Black Pepper (protection)

• Mugwort (psychic insight)

• Black cat hair(supernatural power)

• Carrier oil (almond or jojoba)

Effects: Used for protection, luck, supernatural guidance, and enhancing one’s personal power.

⛤Infernal Oil⛤

Ingredients:

• Dragon’s blood (spirit manifestation)

• Cinnamon (energy amplification)

• Wormwood (spirit communication)

• Sulfur powder (demonic energy)

Effects: Enhances spirit work, opens pathways to demonic entities, and strengthens the connection during rituals or meditations.

⛤Spider Oil⛤

Ingredients:

• Spider web (weaving fate)

• Mullein (spirit communication)

• Clove (psychic enhancement)

• Black walnut husk (transformation)

• Carrier oil (almond or olive)

Effects: Ideal for manifestation, divination, shadow work, and spiritual wisdom.

Ways to Use Magickal Oils

• Anoint Candles – Dress ritual candles to enhance spellwork.

• Wear on Skin – Apply to pulse points (if skin-safe) to absorb its energy.

• Anoint Tools & Talismans – Charge magical items.

• Add to Mojo Bags & Spell Jars – Boost potency of spellwork.

• Drop into Bathwater – For personal empowerment and ritual cleansing.

• Mark Doorways & Altars – To create an energetic boundary.

Baneful Oils

Additionally, here are the basic recipes for various baneful oils. Always use caution and consideration. These oils are meant for experienced practitioners who understand their consequences and ethical implications.

General Hexing & Cursing Oils☠️

⛧Black Arts Oil⛧

Ingredients:

• Asafoetida (baneful energy)

• Sulfur (curse activation)

• Black pepper (powerful hexing)

• Graveyard dirt (spiritual influence)

• Carrier oil (castor or mineral)

Effects: Used for hexing, cursing, and dark workings.

⛧War Water Oil⛧

Ingredients:

• Iron rust (conflict energy)

• Cayenne pepper (aggression)

• Black mustard seed (chaos)

• Spanish moss (binding)

• Carrier oil (swamp water infusion or vinegar base)

Effects: Used for enemy work, destruction magick, and revenge.

⛧Hot Foot Oil⛧

Ingredients:

• Cayenne pepper (drives enemies away)

• Black pepper (banishing)

• Sulfur (removes unwanted people)

• Graveyard dirt (finality)

• Carrier oil (castor)

Effects: Forces someone to leave, drives away enemies, removes toxic individuals.

⛧Devil’s Oil⛧

Ingredients:

• Sulfur (destruction)

• Black pepper (banishing)

• Graveyard dirt (spiritual energy manipulation)

• Asafoetida (intensifies dark workings)

• Carrier oil (castor)

Effects: Used in cursing, binding enemies, and increasing dark magick potency.

⛧Chaos Magick Oil⛧

Ingredients:

• Uranium glass (radioactive power symbolism)

• Mugwort (visionary energy)

• Peppermint (mental stimulation)

• Dragon’s blood (amplification)

• Carrier oil (coconut or jojoba)

Effects: Strengthens chaos magick rituals, assists in reality shifting, and enhances experimental spellwork.

⛧Justice Oil⛧

Ingredients:

• Devil’s claw root (punishment energy)

• Black mustard seed (confusion)

• Red pepper flakes (aggression)

• War water (conflict magic)

• Carrier oil (castor)

Effects: Ensures justice, punishes wrongdoers, and intensifies karmic spells.

⛧Black Hex Oil⛧

Ingredients:

• Black mustard seed (confusion and discord)

• Asafoetida (banishment and curse amplification)

• Wormwood (spiritual torment)

• Black pepper (aggression and conflict)

• Carrier oil (castor)

Effects: Brings misfortune, causes confusion, and weakens an enemy’s defenses.

⛧Jinx Oil⛧

Ingredients:

• Poppy seeds (mental fog and bad luck)

• Sulfur (destruction and decay)

• Vandal root (psychic disruption)

• Red chili flakes (suffering)

• Carrier oil (olive or grapeseed)

Effects: Weakens an enemy’s luck, creates obstacles, and disrupts personal and financial stability.

⛧Graveyard Curse Oil⛧

Ingredients:

• Graveyard dirt (spirit assistance)

• Myrrh (ancestral energy)

• Hemlock (poisonous influence)

• Blackthorn/locust (cursing and dark magic)

• Carrier oil (castor or mineral oil)

Effects: Calls upon spirits of the dead to enact vengeance and haunt enemies.

Domination & Manipulation Oils✊

⛧Domination Oil⛧

Ingredients:

• Licorice root (control and persuasion)

• Calamus root (mental dominance)

• Clove (commanding power)

• Dragon’s blood (intensification)

• Carrier oil (jojoba or sunflower)

Effects: Grants control over another’s thoughts, actions, and decisions.

⛧Bend Over Oil⛧

Ingredients:

• Licorice root (submission)

• High John the Conqueror root (dominance)

• Tobacco (enslaving influence)

• Red pepper flakes (forceful action)

• Carrier oil (olive or mineral)

Effects: Forces someone to comply with your wishes, weakens their willpower, and makes them obedient.

⛧Puppet Master Oil⛧

Ingredients:

• Poppy seed (mental control)

• Mugwort (influencing dreams and subconscious)

• Orris root (psychological persuasion)

• Solomon’s seal (binding)

• Carrier oil (grapeseed)

Effects: Manipulates people’s thoughts and decisions, making them act in your favor.

Revenge & Payback Oils💔

⛧Revenge Oil⛧

Ingredients:

• Devil’s claw root (punishment energy)

• Red brick dust (protection and justified aggression)

• Black salt (banishing)

• Chili powder (intensified suffering)

• Carrier oil (castor or mineral)

Effects: Brings swift karmic retribution and inflicts suffering upon wrongdoers.

⛧Return to Sender Oil⛧

Ingredients:

• Agrimony (reflects negativity)

• Devil’s shoestring (block enemy spells)

• Black tourmaline chips (spiritual protection)

• Eucalyptus (cleansing)

• Carrier oil (coconut)

Effects: Sends hexes, curses, and ill intentions back to the sender with triple force.

⛧Wrath of Spirits Oil⛧

Ingredients:

• Blackthorn/Locust (spiritual attack)

• Wormwood (spirit summoning)

• Henbane (malevolent energy)

• Bloodroot (ancestral wrath)

• Carrier oil (olive)

Effects: Calls upon spirits to haunt and punish enemies with nightmares, paranoia, and bad luck.

Destruction & Chaos Oils💥

⛧Black Destruction Oil⛧

Ingredients:

• Sulfur (corruption and destruction)

• Black dog hair (ill omens)

• War water (conflict magic)

• Rust (decay and ruin)

• Carrier oil (castor or mineral)

Effects: Destroys enemies’ prosperity, causes financial collapse, and weakens their social standing.

⛧Discord & Strife Oil⛧

Ingredients:

• Black mustard seed (confusion and rivalry)

• Vinegar (sour relationships)

• Red pepper (arguments and discord)

• Dogwood bark (unraveling stability)

• Carrier oil (olive)

Effects: Causes arguments, breaks up relationships, and fuels chaos in personal and professional life.

⛧Separation Oil⛧

Ingredients:

• Lemon peel (cutting ties)

• Black salt (banishment)

• Cayenne pepper (heated conflict)

• Rue (removes unwanted people)

• Carrier oil (grapeseed)

Effects: Breaks up relationships, friendships, or business partnerships.

Pain Infliction Oils🩹

⛧Pain & Suffering Oil⛧

Ingredients:

• Thorns (piercing pain)

• Red pepper (burning affliction)

• Black salt (banishment and suffering)

• Stinging nettle (agony)

• Carrier oil (castor)

Effects: Causes physical and emotional distress, making the target feel constant hardship.

⛧Shadow Plague Oil⛧

Ingredients:

• Graveyard/hospital dirt (illness energy)

• Poppy seeds (lethargy and confusion)

• Henbane (spiritual sickness)

• Asafoetida (rot and corruption)

• Carrier oil (mineral)

Effects: Weakens a target’s physical health, causing fatigue, minor ailments, and general discomfort.

⛧Blood Curse Oil⛧

Ingredients:

• Dried animal blood (ancestral wrath)

• Rue (generational curse energy)

• Wormwood (spiritual decay)

• Mandrake root (dark energy infusion)

• Carrier oil (olive or mineral)

Effects: Places long-lasting and harsh curses, especially on family lines or descendants.

Binding & Entrapment Oils⛓️

⛧Shadow Binding Oil⛧

Ingredients:

• Solomon’s seal root (binding power)

• Black ribbon (symbolic entrapment)

• Poppy seeds (mental stagnation)

• Mugwort (energetic suppression)

• Carrier oil (coconut or jojoba)

Effects: Restricts an enemy’s ability to move forward in life, keeping them stuck in bad situations.

⛧Eternal Chains Oil⛧

Ingredients:

• Devil’s shoestring (binding and restriction)

• Ivy (trapping and immobilization)

• Licorice root (control)

• Hemlock (powerful suppression)

• Carrier oil (grapeseed)

Effects: Traps a target in their misfortune, preventing them from escaping a bad fate.

⛧Veil of Silence Oil⛧

Ingredients:

• Slippery elm (stops gossip and lies)

• Mullein (silencing and stilling)

• Knotweed (energetic restriction)

• Solomon’s seal (sealing influence)

• Carrier oil (olive)

Effects: Silences enemies, stops gossip, and prevents harmful rumors from spreading.

How to Use Baneful Oils

• Anoint Black Candles – Used in hexing and cursing rituals.

• Dress Poppets/Dolls – Infuses energy into sympathetic magic.

• Mark Enemy Belongings – Secretly place on items to affect a target.

• Add to Cursed Spell Jars – Intensifies spells for long-term suffering.

• Use in Written Curses – Apply to paper sigils or petitions for enhanced power.

[ad-caelestia]

“bitch, be gone” powder

an old favorite from long ago

ingredients:

cinnamon

cayenne pepper

black pepper or black salt

rosemary

sage

garlic salt

chamomile

instructions:

combine, grind, and sprinkle around doors and windows to banish unwanted energy and to prevent the entrance of these energies in the future

© 2024 ad-caelestia

[inusmasha]

Sometimes it’s hard to read fanfic when you’re studying herbalism.. when they have the character preparing a tincture to use that same DAY!!?

Baby those dried herbs need to sit in that jar with high proof alcohol for at LEAST a month!

That’s why before the use of calendars ppl use to prepare their tinctures either on the new moon or full moon. A a full moon cycle is usually 28 days or so. And they would give the moon names so it’s easier to remember when/what month said tincture was bottled.

This is also why herbal medicine is prepare in small batches. You have to take your time preparing your bottles. Making sure everything is clean so you don’t end up with mold. Diluting your grain alcohol. Heckkk knowing when to pick your herbs for max potency! Drying your herbs! That takes a lot of time too!

I didn’t mean to rant lol

[crazycatsiren]

I'm gonna go ahead and say this one more time, as someone whose ancestors literally evolved traditional medicine, 'cause I been seeing some dumb shit on social media again.

The average joe schmol doesn't possess enough knowledge of actual traditional medicine to know what the hell they're doing. Chances are, they end up whipping some rando concoction that at best does nothing, at worst is toxic.

The difference between medicine and poison is often the dosage.

Herbalism, alternative healing, home remedies, they do have their places in the modern world. But unless you really know what the fuck you're doing, you're better off and much safer with something FDA approved, than listen to some white lady with dreadlocks on TikTok who calls herself a "natural healer" and literally teaches you how to poison yourself.

I research and study herbs for fun, and my herb collection is way bigger and more practical than some souped up pretty picture on the internet. And you know what's the first thing I go for when I have a migraine? Excedrin.

When in doubt, modern medicine first, everything else supplemental.

[reasonsforhope]

"Despite the Central Appalachia ecosystem being historically famous as coal country, under this diverse broadleaf canopy lies a rich, biodiverse world of native plants helping to fill North America’s medicinal herb cabinet.

And it turns out that the very communities once reliant on the coalfields are now bringing this botanical diversity to the country.

“Many different Appalachian people, stretching from pre-colonization to today, have tended, harvested, sold, and used a vast number of forest botanicals like American ginseng, ramps, black cohosh, and goldenseal,” said Shannon Bell, Virginia Tech professor in the Dept. of Sociology. “These plants have long been integral to many Appalachians’ livelihoods and traditions.”

50% of the medicinal herbs, roots, and barks in the North American herbal supply chain are native to the Appalachian Mountains, and the bulk of these species are harvested or grown in Central Appalachia, which includes southern West Virginia, eastern Kentucky, far-southwest Virginia, and east Tennessee.

The United Plant Savers, a nonprofit with a focus on native medicinal plants and their habitats, has identified many of the most popular forest medicinals as species of concern due to their declining populations.

Along with the herbal supply chain being largely native to Appalachia, the herb gatherers themselves are also native [to Appalachia, not Native American specifically], but because processing into medicine and seasonings takes place outside the region, the majority of the profits from the industry do too.

In a press release on Bell’s superb research and advocacy work within Appalachia’s botanical communities, she refers back to the moment that her interest in the industry and the region sprouted; when like many of us, she was out in a nearby woods waiting out the pandemic.

“My family and I spent a lot of time in the woods behind our house during quarantine,” Bell said. “We observed the emergence of all the spring ephemerals in the forest understory – hepatica, spring beauty, bloodroot, trillium, mayapple. I came to appreciate the importance of the region’s botanical biodiversity more than ever, and realized I wanted to incorporate this new part of my life into my research.”

With co-investigator, John Munsell at VA Tech’s College of Natural Resources and Environment, Bell’s project sought to identify ways that Central Appalachian communities could retain more of the profits from the herbal industry while simultaneously ensuring that populations of at-risk forest botanicals not only survive, but thrive and expand in the region.

Bell conducted participant observation and interviews with wild harvesters and is currently working on a mail survey with local herb buyers. She also piloted a ginseng seed distribution program, and helped a wild harvester write a grant proposal to start a forest farm.

“Economic development in post-coal communities often focuses on other types of energy development, like fracking and natural gas pipelines, or on building prisons and landfills. Central Appalachia is one of the most biodiverse places on the planet. I think that placing a greater value on this biodiversity is key to promoting a more sustainable future for the region,” Bell told VA Tech press.

Armed with a planning grant of nearly half a million dollars, Bell and collaborators are specifically targeting forest farming as a way to achieve that sustainable future.

Finally, enlisting support from the nonprofit organization Appalachian Sustainable Development, Virginia Tech, the City of Norton, a sculpture artist team, and various forest botanicals practitioners in her rolodex, Bell organized the creation of a ‘living monument’ along Flag Rock Recreation Area in Norton, Virginia.

An interpretive trail, the monument tells the story of the historic uses that these wild botanicals had for the various societies that have inhabited Appalachia, and the contemporary value they still hold for people today."

-via Good News Network, September 12, 2024

[daddyfuckedme]

[lilianasgrimoire]

Herb Correspondences - S-Z

Sage - Used for self-purification and cleansing.  Helps grief and loss. Healing and protection also increase wisdom.   Element Air. 

Sandalwood - Burn during protection, healing, and exorcism spells.  Aids luck and success, meditation and divination. Raises a high spiritual vibration. Element Water. 

Skullcap - Aids in love, fidelity and peace.  Increases harmony. Element Water. 

Sea Salt - Use to cleanse crystals and tools.  For purification, grounding and protection.  Supports ritual work. Absorbs negativity and banishes evil.  Element Earth & Water.  

Sheep's Purse - Prosperity, protection and healing. Element Earth. 

Sheep Sorrel - Carry to protect against heart disease. Cleansing and increases luck.  Use in faery magic. Element Earth. 

St. John's Wort - Worn to prevent colds & fevers.  Induces prophetic and romantic dreams. Protects against hexes and black witchcraft.  Increases happiness. Use in Solar Magic. Element Fire. 

Star Anise - Consecration, purification, and happiness.  Use for curse breaking or increasing luck. Burn to increase psychic awareness.   Element Fire.  

Strawberry Leaf - Attracts success, good fortune, and favorable circumstances. Increases love and aids pregnancy. Element Water. 

Sunflower - Energy, protection, and power.  Aids wisdom and brings about wishes.  Use in fertility magic. Element Fire. 

Sweet Cicely - Use during rituals for the dead or dying.  It helps with divination and the contact of the spirit.  It is sacred to the Goddess’ of death. Element Earth. 

Sweetwood - See Cinnamon.   

Tansy - See Agrimony.  

Tarragon - Increases self-confidence.  Use in Dragon magic. Aids healing after abusive situations.   Element Fire. 

Tea Leaves - Use for courage or strength. In tea for increasing lust. Burn leaves to ensure future riches.  Element Air. 

Thistle - See Blessed Thistle.  

Thyme - Attracts loyalty, affection, and love. Increases good luck and psychic power.  Drink tea to aid sleep. Element Air.  

Valerian - Also called Graveyard dust. Aids sleep is calming and is a sedative.  Quietens emotions. Supports protection and love. Element Water. 

Vervain - Strengthen other herbs. Helps, peace, love and happiness.  Burn the leaves to attract wealth and keep your youth. Increases chastity also.  Element Water. 

Verbena - Psychic protection, peace and purification.  Healing and helps depression. Increases beauty and love.  Mind opening and clearing. Ideal use for exams. Element Earth.  

Violet - See Heart’s Ease.  

White Willow Bark - Use in lunar magic.  Reduces negativity and removes evil forces and hexes.  Used for healing spells. Element Water. 

Willow - Used for lunar magic, drawing or strengthening love, healing, and overcoming sadness.  Element Water. 

Witches Grass - Happiness, lust, love, and exorcism. Reverses hexes.  Element Earth.  

Wood Betony - Use for purification, protection, and the expulsion of evil spirits and nightmares.  Draws love in your direction. Element Fire. 

Woodruff - Victory, protection, and money.  Element Air. 

Wormwood - Used to remove anger, stop war, inhibit violent acts, and for protection. Use in clairvoyance, to summon spirits, or to enhance divinatory abilities. Element Earth. 

Yarrow - Healing, calming and increases love. Used in handfasting & weddings.  Increases psychic power and divination. Gives courage when needed. Element Air. 

[evermoortarot]

I remember when tumblr was just brimming with witches and mystically inclined people who were sharing potions, sigils, grounding techniques, spells, tarot teaching, and so much more.

I disconnected for quite some time from it all because I associated my past practice with harmful dynamics that caused me a lot of pain. Truth is, as much as you learn, when you’re young you are young. You are naive and curious and you romanticize everything. Our imagination is most heightened the younger we are and our rational brain is still developing. I realize my practice had nothing to do with the toxic relationships I had (not just with others but with myself) and I am in control of what my practice means to me.

I miss the magick. I miss my tarot and my astrology readings and I miss the fulfillment affirming truths for others gave me as well as my readers. I miss connecting so deeply to others through a common purpose of wanting to heal others through spiritual means. I miss my affirmations and my herbalism and it’s so funny that I somehow always find myself coming back to plants, back to nature itself, and back to my small witchy beginnings.

I want to embrace the community again, now wiser and older and more knowledgeable in plants and the world then I was 8-10 years ago.

If the community is still here, please reach out. I miss my past connections but what is meant to be, will be. We have drifted and it was for the best. I hope to connect with new wonderful witches, herbalists, and spiritualists.

[lovehina019]

[violetflamesx]