Showing posts with label plants. Show all posts
Showing posts with label plants. Show all posts

Sunday, March 20, 2011

Common Aromatherapy Uses

Common Aromatherapy Uses
Word Count:
350
Summary:
Aromatherapy as used today originated in Europe and has been practiced there since the early 1900s. Practitioners of aromatherapy believe that every oil has a vibration or note, which can be used for different therapeutic applications.

Keywords:
aromatherapy, essential oils, aroma, health, roots, plants, natural, healthcare, oil, healthy,

Article Body:
Aromatherapy as used today originated in Europe and has been practiced there since the early 1900s. Practitioners of aromatherapy believe that every oil has a vibration or note, which can be used for different therapeutic applications.
Aromatherapy can be used to relax and soothe the mind and body, to energize or even to arouse. Aromatherapy derived from the use of essential oils to solicit specific emotions. Essential oils have been used for thousands of years for their health supporting properties. The powerful aromas of essential oils affect your moods and feelings through your sense of smell.
By selecting a particular scent, you can encourage a state of relaxation, romance, healing or comfort. Essential oils can be used in Aromatherapy, to scent potpourri, lotions, cosmetics, perfumes, food flavorings and medicinally.
Additionally oils can be used in creating sachets, potpourri, reviving potpourri, and for light bulb scenting. Essential oils can also be used via the bath, diffusion, massage, or compress. Each individual person, fabric, or material may react differently to a particular suggested use.
Essential oils can be mixed in a cream essential oil combinations are applied directly to the skin for beauty care or treatment of sores or irritations. By using different essential oils, you can control the nature of those benefits.
A unique property of plants is that many contain natural fragrance or perfume-like scents known as essential oils. Essential oils come from plants while fragrance oils are artificially created and often contain synthetic chemicals.
Essential oils are taken from a plant's flowers, leaves, stalks, bark, rind, or roots. The yield of essential oil differs with individual plant species-ranging in most cases from about 0.2 to 2.0%. That's why literally tons of plant material are required for just a few hundred pounds of oil.
In some cases different organs of a single plant may contain essential oils of different chemical composition. In the end, even the smallest bottle of essential oil can create a lot of powerful solution. It is important to note that the benefits of aromatherapy do depend on the unique nature of each person's response to an aromatic stimulus.

Saturday, February 26, 2011

Award Winning Aromatic Plants

Award Winning Aromatic Plants
Word Count:
506
Summary:
I recently was involved in the exhibition of a show garden at the 2006 “Garden Heaven” exhibition. I worked along with Terra Garden Ireland based in Claregalway on the bronze medal winning Malaysian themed garden “Neo Nusantara”. The garden combined wood, stone, earth and planting with two unique water features. The design aimed to appease and rejuvenate the five senses. Sight, touch, sound, smell and taste. Beautiful dark woods and running water used in the construction were...

Keywords:
scent, aromatic, plants, flower, garden, lavender, butterflies, sage

Article Body:
I recently was involved in the exhibition of a show garden at the 2006 “Garden Heaven” exhibition. I worked along with Terra Garden Ireland based in Claregalway on the bronze medal winning Malaysian themed garden “Neo Nusantara”. The garden combined wood, stone, earth and planting with two unique water features. The design aimed to appease and rejuvenate the five senses. Sight, touch, sound, smell and taste. Beautiful dark woods and running water used in the construction were a delight to the senses of sight, touch and sound. I used carefully selected planting to arouse the sense of smell. Here are two of the plants I used to add scent to the garden. Use them to add scent to your garden as well.
* Sage, for scent and flower
Salvia x sylvestris “Mainacht” commonly known as May night sage is a hardy perennial native to Western Asia and Europe. This sage is a colourful plant with indigo-blue flower spikes throughout June and July. In order to achieve this prolonged flowering you must remove the flower spikes as soon they start to fade. The striking flowers are held above the plants wrinkled and aromatic grey-green leaves. As well as exciting the gardener’s sense of smell, this plant will also excite and attract plenty of butterflies and bees. These visitors will add an extra and welcome visual element to your garden. You need not worry that Salvia x sylvestris “Mainacht” is going to engulf or overpower you planting areas. It only grows at a moderate pace to height of 60cm (2ft), with a similar spread. Position this reliable perennial in the front or middle of a well-drained border. It does really well in sun or dappled shade where the bright blue flowers will add a colour boost to green leaved plants.
* English lavender for scent and butterflies
The second scented plant is Lavandula angustifolia “Hidcote” commonly known as English lavender. This small evergreen shrub (some people say herb) originated in Europe and Asia and grows to a height of 0.6 metres (2ft); with a similar spread. Growing in many gardens throughout the country, its long stalked deep purple flower spikes wave gently above narrow grey-green aromatic leaves. These blooms will last for many weeks to come whilst on the plant, when cut for indoor display these flowers will last up to 10 days. I suggest you cut back the flower stalks after flowering to maintain the plant's compact shape. Care must be taken not to cut into old wood as this can cause large areas of the plant to die back. The oil of lavender extracted from this frost hardy shrub is used to this day in the production of soaps, scented candles, perfumes and making potpourri. Lavender copes well with free draining or sandy soils and is an ideal container plant in full sun due to its drought resistance. I would recommend this scented plant for edging walkways or simply if you want to attract some butterflies into your garden space. Another great lavender for this purpose is Lavandula angustifolia “Munstead”