This year I decided to grow 3 things that help with stress. Patchouli, Piss Off Plant, and a homeopathic anxiety remedy called RescueHerb.
If you're looking for an even MORE unique plant you have to learn about Buzz Buttons, right now! They make your mouth feel fizzy.
There's a certain irony to ordering plants that promise to reduce stress and having them arrive almost 2 months late. I wrote, I called I begged .... PLEASE send me my plants. But everyone's gardens were late getting going this year, even commercial growers. Especially commercial growers actually.
Therefore I had to wait patiently for this year's experimental plants to show up on my doorstep. Ordering live plants online might seem a bit scary or risky but they arrive in perfectly good shape ready to go in the garden.
What are these stress reducing plants?
Plants that Reduce Stress
- Piss Off Plant.
Piss-Off plant apparently keeps cats, rabbits and dogs away from your garden. I have NO idea if there's any truth to this but if it can keep rabbits out of my garden (voles? even BETTER) it'll reduce my vegetable gardening stress by a ton. I'll plant some this weekend around the perimeter of my garden and see how it goes. It might go like the experiment where I actually held a Citronella plant while mosquitos happily landed on it and me.
2. Patchouli
Hippies never seem stressed and they always smell like Patchouli (Pogostemon patchouli) ergo - Patchouli must be a stress reducer. I'll grow it, dry it and then sprinkle it around. I'd also like to figure out if there's a way I can dry and braid it to make an incense stick out of it. Patchouli also has medicinal benefits including using it for headaches, nausea and fungal and bacterial infection relief.
3. Rescueherb
This is probably the most interesting of the stress reducing plants. Rescueherb (Solenostemon monostachyus) is a plant that's popular in Africa (although I don't know which countries exactly) as a homeopathic anxiety remedy. Nigerian research has confirmed that the plant is able to calm the central nervous system. To take it for medicinal purposes you crush the leaves in water, strain it then drink it.
I also ordered some Wintergreen mint which tastes like ... Wint o' green Lifesavers but they weren't delivered because of crop failure.
Will any of these plants do what they say they will? I have no idea. The toothache plant didn't really seem to relieve toothaches but it sure made people generate saliva when they ate it. It made you taste enormous amounts of salt in your mouth for some reason. Plus it was so hilarious watching people eat it while drooling copious amounts of spit, that if you did in fact have a toothache, you'd have forgotten about it for a while.
I'll keep you updated on this year's experimental plants and let you know if it helps with the anxiety I experience. If all else fails I'll just take photographs of the baby bunnies that are born in my plot every year. That seems to reduce stress as well.
Have a good weekend and let me know if you're growing anything interesting this year.
Any updates?
This was not the article I was expecting when I read the headline, but you definitely took a fun approach for plants to relieve stress :) I hadn't heard of Rescueherb before, so thanks for the enlightenment there!
Cheers!
Always love your tips on gardens of any type. I just got a compliment from a neighbor friend about my yard. I do love flowers and tho getting old bulbs make it easier. I use to have a bunny that visited, it was so cute! I feed a few stray cats so I don't mind them, they go off to a neighbor's yard to do their business. I feed birds too and have lots of lizards, plus a couple of dogs and an inside cat, mostly they all seem to do well together. I do love mint, so easy to grow even where you don't want it! One of my sons moved out of state and gave me his chocolate mint, so good. I do need to get some more patchouli as I dry many of my flowers.
FYI an easier way to burn your patchouli, sage or any other herb is to buy charcoal discs. Dry the plant/herb, light a disc and sprinkle some of the dry plant/herb onto the burning disc.
That toothache plant sounds perfect for medications or marijuana that cause dry mouth.