254 Plants That Are Shows for the Nose

Show Transcript

GB 254 TRANSCRIPT Aromatic Plants, Soup

Farmer Fred  0:00

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Welcome to the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast. If you're just a beginning gardener or you want good gardening information, you've come to the right spot.

Farmer Fred

One joy of having a garden are aromatic plants. Annuals, perennials, shrubs and trees that emanate a pleasant smell while you’re walking through the yard, especially in the afternoon and evening. Shows for the nose. We talk with New York- based aromatherapist Amy Anthony about the power that various aromatic plants can instill in us, making us happier, calmer and braver. Really. Plus Master Gardener and chef instructor Andi MacDonald shares her recipe for vegan split pea soup, whose ingredients you might be growing in your garden right now.

We’re podcasting from Barking Dog Studios here in the beautiful Abutilon Jungle in Suburban Purgatory. It’s the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast, brought to you today by Smart Potsand Dave Wilson Nursery. Let’s go!

Farmer Fred

I sure love the “shows for the nose” plants. They are the ones that have a wonderful aroma. I remember as a child growing up, we had an Oleander bush in our front yard. And I just used to love that smell, especially when it was in flower. Growing up, I've just always been attracted to plants that just smell great at a certain time of year, at a certain time of day. One of my favorites right now is the Michelia figo, also known as the Magnolia figo. The common name is banana shrub, but it does not grow bananas. But it produces these little flowers in late spring. They're fairly insignificant flowers, but they smell like Juicy Fruit gum. It's just a wonderful aroma. And of course in the summertime, you can grow tuberose, as well. There are all sorts of aromatic plants. My favorite right now that I have growing in the greenhouse and I'm looking forward to transplanting it out in the yard, is a lemon verbena - Aloysia - and it has this wonderful aroma when you just touch the leaves and put your fingers to your nose. It smells just like lemon. It's excellent. So I thought we'd talk with a smell expert, somebody who knows her aromatic plants and aromatherapy. And of course, Aromatherapy is much more than essential oils. It's an experience when it connects you with nature, no matter where you are when that inherently connects mind and body. Amy Anthony is with NYC Aromatica and she has a podcast called “Essential Aromatica.” So whether you are new to essential oils and aromatherapy or well versed in the subject matter, Essential Aromatica can inspire you and elevate the possibilities for you of aromatherapy. So Amy Anthony, it's a pleasure to be talking with you. I talked about some of my favorite “shows for the nose”. What are some of your favorites?

Amy Anthony  3:15

Oh my gosh, what a beautiful introduction. I don't think I can keep up with that. Thank you for  mentioning lemon verbena. I'm in the Long Island area, so we can't grow what you grow in California. But every year  I buy two to three lemon verbena plants and I grow them, or I ask them to grow, and then I harvest their leaves to make tea.

Farmer Fred  3:39

I got sold on it when the Master Gardeners were growing a lemon verbena shrub - it really is a shrub -  at the Fair Oaks Horticulture Center. And one of the people in charge of the herbs section had taken some of the leaves and made lemon verbena cookies. And that was just so delicious. I go, “I’m gonna get this plant.” So I'm looking forward to cookies.

Amy Anthony  4:03

Yeah. And you're just touching on something that's amazing about aromatherapy and the aromatic plants, the ones that give us essential oils and we can go down that road about the nuance about that if you want. The essential oil is great and I have so many bottles here with me but just growing and knowing the plants and touching it and smelling it. And like you were saying about the Magnolia figo with insignificant flowers, the banana shrub, you're making me think of Korean boxwoods that have these incredibly insignificant flowers, but they're all over the place when they're in bloom and you just hear the buzzing of all the insects as you go by the Korean boxwoods and then you smell that smell  of the flower just when you're really when you're by the shrubs and it's a certain time of year. Like you're saying, scents takes us to a sense - if you will - of place and time which is really powerful.

Farmer Fred  5:00

Oh yeah, aromas can remind us of things and events and bring to mind great memories. As a vegetable gardener myself, the scent of just gently rubbing my finger up and down a tomato plant stem and smelling that. It reminds me: it's spring.

Amy Anthony  5:16

Yeah, I love the reminder of what time of the year it is. And these golden nuggets we'd get to look forward to that are ephemeral, and they're gone.

Farmer Fred  5:24

Some sort of interesting relationship between how the nose works, and how those aromas play on the brain. Like I can still recall - this a little gross, but it's true - about grade school. When you're in grade school, kids throw up a lot. That happens. Well, Mr. Stevie was the janitor at the St. Charles Borromeo Elementary School in North Hollywood. And his job was to clean it up. And he used this concoction of what looked like green mulch that he would put on the spot. And that had this very significant aroma (sort of like a sweetened cleaning product). And sometimes when I get a whiff of that now, I'm immediately transported back to St. Charles.

Amy Anthony  6:05

Yeah, it is fascinating. A part of aromatherapy study and beyond that, but the sense of smell is intimately linked with the hippocampus and memory formation and retention. That hippocampus can grow and  we could still retain and form new memories as we go through life. But you're really drawing upon something powerful and I think your guests will appreciate this. We form scent memories, really deep ones, when we're younger, and when our brains start to mature in our 20s that sense of like immediate connection with scent just starts to to diminish ever so little, so we get these strong memories from childhood and it's just the way the brain is working.

Farmer Fred  6:50

Yeah, and it might even be more powerful than what the eyes see or the ears hear as far as how long it lasts with you. I'm just fascinated by it. And the fact that there are so many plants that have wonderful aromas. Now I noticed that in your latest podcast, Essential Aromatica, you talk about the juniper berry. Well, certainly Juniper plants grow in a wide variety of areas. It is the bane of most landscapers because they're rather prickly to work with.

Amy Anthony  7:20

Yes. The Juniper is  a noble old soul. We could go, we could wax poetically about that. But yeah, Juniper. I'm inspired by this time of year here in New York State. It's the cold time of the year, but it's actually kind of disgustingly warm here for February in New York.  Juniper is found around the world. There's so many different species. It is a giver of its gorgeous berries that we can cook with. And it's an incredibly cleansing plant for the mind cleansing for the spirits. The berries are just so powerful. And before me, I have like three bottles of juniper berry essential oil.

Farmer Fred  8:05

And you're inhaling it.  What about these diffusers? I gotta confess, I got onto an aromatherapy kick and I bought three different diffusers to scatter around the house and put different essential oils in them to enjoy. It turned out to be more work than we were willing to do. But still it was a nice experience.

Amy Anthony  8:28

Yes. So diffusion Aromatherapy is very interesting. It can be incredibly powerful and depends on the kind of diffuser you have. So you can buy a nebulizing diffuser. You could buy one as a non aromatherapy enthusiast. You just put the oil in a chamber and vibration happens. Then, just a mist comes out. So it permeates the air and can go deeply into your lungs actually. And then there's the water diffusers, ultrasonic diffusers, where you put just a couple drops of essential oil in with the water and you get that mood kind of situation. I'm making this distinction because diffusion aromatherapy, when you use that nebulizer, you get the more pharmacological effects of inhaling the oil deeply into your body. And there's a distinction. It's a multi layered cake of essential oils. Especially when you're working with the pure, genuine, authentic, concentrated essential oils. So what happens is you smell something and you think, “Oh, I recognize that. I know what that is.” or  “Oh, I like that.” So there's already that happening. And then you might have a memory that you remember in elementary school or grandma's cooking. And then, essential oils are antimicrobial in nature. They're heavily anti inflammatory. Many of them have affinities for the respiratory tract and when you inhale the stuff, you're taking in the antimicrobial properties, you're also working with the nervous system in a neuro endocrine system. So it is true that lavender can make you sleepy by working with your nervous system receptors.

Farmer Fred  10:19

That's the reason I got it originally, was to put me to sleep quicker. And that was with the lavender essential oils. How easy is it to make your own essential oils from the plants you grow?

Amy Anthony  10:31

That's a great question. Because I do distill for the aromatic waters, the hydrosols, it takes a lot of plant material to obtain essential oil. So the figure I have always used pertaining to lavender. Depending on the lavender plant location, all that growing in a season, I need 250 to 300 pounds of flowering lavender tops, to get a pound of oil. 350 pounds of flowering lavender tops must be harvested to then put into a still to then obtain one pound of oil. That’s a lot of plant material. So we're talking farm here. Farms have a lot of plant material. So it's crazy. I grow lemongrass here ornamentally and I'll cut it and I'll cut like three pounds of lemongrass. I get not even a milliliter, one ml. I get like nothing in essential oil.

Farmer Fred  11:31

Basically, if I want the essential oil of rosemary, I would need an acre of rosemary, if you're using the flowers and not the leaves. And frankly, I'd rather the bees have the flowers in the wintertime.

Amy Anthony  11:42

That's how I feel. Honestly, when I just take what's on my property or I go to an organic farm near me and I take what I need for me, for my small aromatherapy practice. And then like you're saying, I want it for everybody else. You want to leave that behind and be responsible me. There's a whole thing about the big billion dollar industries of essential oils and overuse and bad oils out there. Bad business practices. Yeah, let's leave it for the insects.

Farmer Fred  12:13

Well, yeah. In USDA zone nine, and in parts of eight, you can grow rosemary as a flowering plant in the wintertime. And that may be one of the few plants that the bees will be attracted to on nice days during the winter to enjoy.

Amy Anthony  12:27

I love how you mentioned rosemary because I have two pots of rosemary and I put them in the garage every winter, and every winter without any water because it's rosemary, they are flowering right now. They started flowering in early December. So every time I go in the garage, I see these two Rosemary plants just happily doing their thing with no insects to visit them.

Farmer Fred  12:53

It's kind of scaring me that you're growing rosemary in your garage. Are their lights or a bright window there?

Amy Anthony  13:00

There are some windows and it gets the light it needs. It's just fascinating how plants are so resilient.

Farmer Fred  13:08

Well, yeah, they want to grow. For essential oils, are you mainly harvesting the flowers and not the leaves?

Amy Anthony  13:17

That's a really great question. And it depends on the plant. So rosemary, you would want rosemary when it's flowering or just about to flower and we would harvest the top thirds, like the young shoots. Okay, and you snip snip snip, snip. Same with lavender, just newly flowering tops. There's oil in the stem. I had the Juniper berry, you would want to take the berries, but you could harvest the top, you know the top of the twig with the berries that you want to get where the aromatics are. Like lemon grass, you could take the whole plant, you wouldn't take the roots. With the rose, you just want the rose petals. You don't want any green parts. So it's just about who's the plant and where is the most oil produced.

Farmer Fred  14:05

For a lot of gardeners who may have roses that are unpruned they may be seeing this time of year in the winter time rose hips, which people use for rose hip Tea. So how easy is it to make rose hip tea?

Amy Anthony  14:20

Super easy. I love that you said that, because my mother she's in Michigan, she harvested some rose hips for me. And then dried them. That was such a nice gift  from her to do that. And then I just take the rose hip for like a cup of tea. I'll take two to three rose hips and let them gently steep. Oh, it's so nice.

Farmer Fred  14:45

Okay, that's easy. It sounds easier than distilling to make essential oils.

Amy Anthony  14:50

It is. And that's the thing about being a mindful practitioner of aromatherapy. It is to love the plants, and turn to the application that's needed. So I do want to give this shout out to  rose hip oil. When you press the rose hip, it has the seed inside that produces an incredibly beautiful oil that could be nice for topical applications or really support skin health.

Farmer Fred  15:16

Would you attract bees them?

Amy Anthony  15:20

Actually no because the rose hip oil is not really aromatic and it's very protective for the skin. Generally the species is from South America. I'm forgetting the species name. But rose hip seed oil is incredibly lovely to protect your skin for all gardeners, especially when we forget to put our sunscreen on. It's a nice oil to look into and most health food stores will have rose hip seed oil.

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Farmer Fred

Let's get back to our conversation about “shows for the nose”: aromatic plants. We are with the host of the Essential Aromatica podcast, aromatherapist Amy Anthony. Now one point we were talking about earlier before we started is one of my favorite shrubs that does a whole host of duties in the yard especially here in USDA zones nine and eight. The bay Laurel plant, Laurus nobilis. The shrub in my yard would get 15-20 feet tall. The leaves are wonderfully aromatic. you crack a leaf in half, and it smells like its spaghetti time. What a wonderful aroma.

Amy Anthony  18:28

It's so like the symbolism of Laurel.  I have them here. I have them in little pots. These guys are probably two feet tall. I can ask them to grow here so I have to bring them in the garage where they overwinter. What’s the matter?

Farmer Fred  18:44

The poor garage! Your car's outside for the winter and now you have a garage full of plants!

Amy Anthony  18:48

I do. My husband is very gracious. I’m so jealous that you could grow this plant. I don't harvest its leaves here. I leave it when it flowers. Oh those flowers are gorgeous. You see the bees visiting it and you could just take a leaf and crush it like you're saying and smell it. Or one thing I like to do as an aromatherapist is whenever I make soup, I like to put my herbs on the side and make a tea of it and an infusion because that way I don't have to strain things out I could do what I want with it. and then you lift the lid off. And if you'd have 20 bay leaves in a pot of ever so slightly steaming water, It's like heaven. I want  to share a couple things about Laurel, especially the laurel we cook with, because it's really digestive. It helps with digesting fatty things. I think it's like a gall bladder or liver type support. Many of the essential oils or aromatic plants help with getting the GI system moving and helping digestion and move along. But Laurel the way I know it to work with emotions because when we work with aromatics we're working with emotions as well, along with states of being and how we feel. Laurel gives you chutzpah.  it's like a “I can do this” feeling. It's courage, right? It's been used for centuries. The crown of Laurel for victory, it kind of gives you a little pep in your step if you need that boost. If you smell some Laurel essential oil, and as a tip, I have on my website, lots of free videos and free classes. I have on the first page how to smell an essential oil. And you might think that sounds so stupid. But really,  If you take one drop of Laurel essential oil and smell it on a cotton pad for three minutes? I'd love to see what your response is. Because something's probably going to happen. That's what I love about being a teacher. It's like how do you work with the oils? Right? A lot of us are like, I've heard of essential oils, but it's like how do you really work with them and incorporate them in your life? Maybe start growing some of the plants so you get to appreciate where that oil comes from. You know, it's  important.

Farmer Fred  21:11

So there's a tip for all you salespeople out there: before you have to make a cold call, you might want to sniff some bay laurel.

Amy Anthony  21:18

I love that.

Farmer Fred  21:21

One interesting plant that I grow to attract beneficial insects - because apparently - insects are hooked on nicotine, is flowering tobacco. And the tubular flowers attract hummingbirds and butterflies. And the plant itself gets about four or five feet tall and two feet wide. And it has a great nighttime aroma. And I always love the plants that have an aroma at night because you can come home from a hard day at work. You can walk through the garden and inhale and calm down immediately.

Amy Anthony  21:55

Yeah, I love to grow ornamentals. So I'm in zone 7B. We're on the east end of Long Island on the North Fork, as it's called. I can't grow what you grow. But I have been growing native tobacco and ornamental tobacco, and that headiness of the aroma! And you see the different insects visiting these plants, like you're saying, and it's just, it's heady. It's just designed to sit there and be mesmerized while looking at a tobacco plant. I love to talk about aromatics. And I geek out about essential oils but plants like tobacco and these gorgeous Oleander we can't get essential oils from those plants per se. There's just something about engaging our sense of smell and realizing how important it is to us as as creatures of this earth. And how scent is a chemical means of communication. So scent and insects. Plants and insects have been evolving together for 1000s and 1000s of years. I like how you're bringing up always go back to the insects because there's a special relationship that the plants and insects have.

Farmer Fred  23:13

Without insects, there's a lot less fruit. We need that relationship.

Amy Anthony  23:17

So plant those gorgeous plants. You know what I want to share with you? I was planting Euphorbia. It’s someone I'm getting to know. And it's in the back of our three season room. I'll have to send you a picture and I haven't been watering it, but it's getting light and it just started flowering. And even my husband - who's not into what I do so much and I'm not into what he does - smelled that aromatic smell from those flowers. It is interesting. And the volatile language is shared amongst all the plants. There's a similar chemistry, but I was like I smell Yarrow. Yeah, there's a chemical language, the chemistry is shared. So I was so excited that these guys are blooming. It's new to me. There's always something new.

Farmer Fred  24:05

Unfortunately Euphorbia has the common name that some people don't like and that is spurge. You think of spurge, you think of weeds. But Euphorbia is commonly called spurge, which makes it easy to grow.

Amy Anthony  24:20

Well, I hope so. I'm glad you brought that up. Because when I was looking at the plant tags, and I've seen euphorbias listed as “spurge”. And I’m thinking, “oh, spurge.”  Yeah, I’ve been gardening my whole life. And I'm in my early 40s.

Farmer Fred  24:33

Euphorbias. Actually, there's just so many Euphorbs out there that you can grow that are just gorgeous, with wonderfully different flowers, too. One or two plants that you could probably grow in USDA zone seven that are a wonderful show for the nose would include star jasmine, and 4 O’ Clocks.

Amy Anthony  24:53

Star Jasmine I just bought this year, and we live next to state land. So we have deer that come to visit and I'm like, I'm never putting up a fence. But I finally put up a little fenced-in garden. And I put the star jasmine in there in a pot. So thanks for sharing that. I can't wait to see what happens next year.

Farmer Fred  25:13

And the four o'clocks are one of those that put on their best aroma as the name would imply, after four o'clock in the afternoon.

Amy Anthony  25:20

I have a question for you about that. Because they come from South America, if I'm not mistaken, 4 0’Clocks, my understanding is they can become weedy.

Farmer Fred  25:28

I wouldn't classify it as a noxious weed, but it is a tuberous rooted perennial. And that's kind of a red flag in gardening circles when you say “tuberous rooted” because tubers have a tendency to multiply, sort of like the Alstroemeria or Peruvian Lily and it can take over an area. But you know, if it's the only thing that will grow in that spot, let it grow.

Amy Anthony  25:52

Oh, that's awesome. But you're right. It's just like mint. When I hear someone say, Oh, I'm gonna plant spearmint or the fill-in-the-blank mint, and I'm like, Are you sure? Are you ready to always kind of pull that out from where it's growing? Are you going to contain it in a pot?

Farmer Fred  26:12

Speaking of memories of shows for the nose, one of my earliest memories would be my mother telling me to go in the backyard and rip out the spearmint that's starting to spread.

Amy Anthony  26:24

Really? Yes. You got taught young.

Farmer Fred  26:28

Yeah, it was the groundcover that got away. Yes, I remember smelling like Wrigley gum for the rest of the day.

Amy Anthony  26:36

I love that you're bringing up a point that I was reminded of. So many essential oil bearing plants, when We're talking about aromas, aromatic plants in general, but a lot of the essential oil bearing plants can be a little weedy. Like fennel, like if you let that go. Chamomile, she's everywhere in my garden. The German Chamomile is everywhere. Coriander, some of these guys aren't so contained. And a lot of these plants produce essential oils to help them thrive and survive. So a lot of these essential oil bearing plants grow in really tough spots. They are our pioneering species. So to go back to this gorgeous juniper berry, they they're kind of the first to arrive. I have Virginia cedarwood here on Long Island, it grows everywhere. It's just such a noble plant. They are the first to arrive. After the birds eat the seeds and poop them out. I hope you get my point. It's just important to share  essential oils. These plants aren't precious per se, they're fighters.

Farmer Fred  27:40

They're just trying to survive. And you brought up fennel. And if you love the smell of licorice, I would say get a fennel plant, but I would give it to you with this warning: Put it in the back 40, It's going to spread. It's going to look ugly for most of the year. But when it has that aroma, you'll want to be out there all the time. We have it along a bike trail here in Sacramento County, the American River Parkway, which is full of native plants as well as some escaped plants. And fennel is an escaped plant that has sort of taken over in this riparian area running along the American River. But during the month of May, what a joyful experience to bike the American River Parkway, and just inhale all that licorice scent from the fennel.

Amy Anthony  28:28

And you know what? I love those umbels. The umbellaria family. you'll just see all of the different insects on them. This is like the Equal Opportunity plant family where  you'll see so many different insects together on the same umbel. It's just fascinating to me to watch, like a little kid.

Farmer Fred  28:48

If you're trying to attract beneficial insects to your property go with the umbellaria family. It’s almost short for umbrella, and that's the way the flower looks. It's a large flat flower. And it makes it easier for the insects that are beneficials to get to the pollen because they don't have the long probiscous that say a hummingbird might have. So those umbellaria family plants are just excellent for attracting a whole host of great pollinating insects.

Amy Anthony  29:16

You know what am I great loves is and I don't know if you can grow this in your area is Angelica. Angelica and  the Chinese Angelica are  just gorgeous flowers and attract all of the different insects. It's just  like a party.

Farmer Fred  29:38

Some would say Angelica is a weed.

Amy Anthony  29:42

It's a party for insects.

Farmer Fred  29:44

Oh, it's a party for insects, yes. But the angelica can spread. So around here I learned that lesson the hard way. I had a kiwi vine that required some major infrastructure to support it. And underneath it, I put down a “beneficial insect plant mix”, a blend of seeds. And it seems like the first one that came up and the one that took over the rest of the area was the Angelica… not to say there's anything wrong with that.

Amy Anthony  30:13

We never forget these lessons, though, once you learn them, you'll never plant that mint, for example. We will watch Angelica and fennel.

Farmer Fred  30:22

Well, there's a place for everything. And if people really want a mint, put it in a container. And grow it that way. It's easier to enjoy that way. Hey, talk about your podcast.

Amy Anthony  30:34

Oh, thank you. My podcast. I think it started out as Essential Aromatica.  I want to make aromatherapy accessible to people. I want to provide inspiration. And if you're curious about essential oils, and how to incorporate them in your life, I have episodes that I'll feature. For instance, I made a soup. Today I'm going to talk about it. And let's talk about  how I put lemongrass in the soup. And let's talk about this essential oil of lemongrass. And I really want to make aromatherapy accessible. And what I'd like to highlight is today, it's the new moon. So Happy New Moon day to everybody. I have this pet project I've worked on that I'm putting on the podcast, where I take an essential oil bearing plant. And I pair it with the seasonal Moon time. And I talk about Moon time themes. So this is Juniper time right now, in talking about its winter, even if you're in gorgeous California, it is times of scarcity, and how to think about that and honor it. And notice nature around you. And I pair a plant with this moon time and I have a poem that I read, I have a guided meditation to help you connect with the oil, with the plant, with yourself, with nature. They think this is why we garden, right? We're curious, we want to be connected with the earth. That's it in a nutshell. I really want to make aromatherapy accessible to people and not just be a bottle of something you see on a shelf. And you're like, Well, I have a diffuser, what do I do with this? I'll pause because it's a big question. I'm here to share. I'm doing this out of passion. A lot of my work is out of passion, actually.

Farmer Fred  32:19

Well, that makes you a happy camper. Very Yeah, exactly. Who wants a desk job? I understand why they do it. But I could never have a job where, sitting on my desk is a calendar, with X's through the dates to the day I retire