Healing Gardens

Why

This last summer, my brother was seriously injured and received several large burns and wounds.  He was far away from me and I felt powerless to help him.  I made an herbal aloe vera gel for him to use, and made this from the knowledge that i gained about the healing properties of lavender and rose hips.  This oil will be used for healing wounds and preventing scarring for myself and to whomever I give herbal products that contain this oil.

Lavender

Lavender is a sclerypherous shrub, meaning that it has thickish fuzzy or waxy leaves, woody stems that may be hairy, and generally has a pastel vegetative color.  These traits help plants like Lavender endure hot summers and conserve prescious water.  In the United States, Lavender is well suited for the Pacific northwest, but really thrives and is exceedingly common.  I do not know which species of Lavender I used, but it is from the genus Lavendula and is probably Lavendula angustifolia or common lavender.  I gathered lavender blossoms from a house in Seattle that I designed and installed native plants to augment current landscaping.  I cut the blossoms maybe just a few weeks late, and they were't as fragrant as they could be but are still fragrant yet where they sit in my kitchen.  

The medicinal properties of lavender include: soothing for headaches, relaxing, anti-inflamatory, healing for burns, preventing scarring, and useful for stings.  I am interested in the last three properties for the use of this oil.  

Rosehips

Rosehips are literally just the fruit of roses.  I gathered these rosehips from some "Rugosa Rose" Rosa rugosa, a rose that is native to NE Asia and is widely used as an ornamental here in the US.  It is similar in form to Rosa nutkana except it is much pricklier, and also has much larger and more abundant rosehips (this may be a trait that has been bred into this species).  Nonetheless, I like this species very much, would include this as one of the non-native plants that I would choose to cultivate.  I gathered these hips in particular from the organic farm at Evergreen, where I was given permission to do so from the garden manager (Melissa?).  

Grapeseed Oil

Grapeseed oil is a biproduct from wine-making.  The people who make it say that it is therefore more sustainable than other oils manufacturing.  This oil is not so popular as Olive oil, but I find the thickness and smell of olive oil obnoxious in herbal or cosmetic preparations.  Grapeseed oil is lighter, less greasy on the skin, and is quite antioxidant.  It also has property of hardening at a fairly low temperature, so can be used in colder climates, or say when a person happens to live outside and use a strawbale outdoor kitchen for food preparation.  It has this one advantage over Jajoba oil as well, as Jajoba oil (my favorite oil) hardens at about 50 degrees F and therefore was unhelpful to me in the winter.  Therefore, I use Jajoba oil for preparations that involve more summer elements (sunburn, stings, scrapes), and grapeseed oil for preparations that involve the winter elements (dry or chapped skin, windburn).    

The Preparation

I placed a little bit of rosehips in a mason jar and then added lavender flowers to fill in the gaps between the rosehips.  I kept adding lavender and rosehips until the jar was full, then I added Grapeseed oil till the plants were covered.  I covered the mouth of the mason jar with gauze, and then put on a metal jar ring.  I would like to say that I stirred the mix once a day, but I didn't.  I absolutely ignored it and knew I would.  It turned out fine, probably because Grapeseed oil and rosehips are so antioxidant and probably antimicrobial to some extent.  I ended up using all of the oil I made after about 4 weeks of infusion.  It smelled fragrant and felt wonderful on the skin.