You are here: Home / Archives for Video herb walks

Crampbark/Guelder Rose (Latin Name: Viburnum Opulis)

July 11, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Crampbark

The give away is the name of this plant! It is used as an antispasmodic, relaxing the muscles all over the body and can be used to relieve cramps of all kinds including period pains. It is a bushy tree, a native of North America but I see it growing commonly in English parks where it has been planted for its spectacular white flowers in the spring and gorgeous red berries in autumn.

As the name suggests it is the bark of the plant which is used and this contains the very potent antispasmodic, viopudial as well as salicin which is an aspirin like compound, effective as an herbal analgesic and painkiller.

I regularly use it in my herbal tinctures to relax muscles in conditions such as arthritis and period pains as well as putting it in an anti-inflammatory cream that I make up which I call for want of imagination aches and pains cream!

Linda Bostock

Medical Herbalist/Herbal Health Information

Filed Under: Herbs and Health Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Chamomile (Matricaria Recutita) Shingle Beach at Eastbourne June 2011

July 11, 2011 by Leave a Comment

I could write a few books about this herb, but I won’t otherwise you won’t have time to read about all the other fabulous plants I have written about. It looks like a large daisy with loads of feathery little leaves and has a strong apple scent when crushed.

Chamomile on the beach

Every self respecting Tudor garden had a chamomile lawn and there is a chamomile seat in Kew Gardens. Actually I haven’t been there for a few years so I hope it is still there. It is the flower heads that are used which contain volatile oil, chamazulene, flavonoids and tannic acid. I’ve already told you volatile oils are antibacterial and chamazulene is known to be active against staphylococcus aureus. As well as having anti bacterial properties chamomile is a wonderful digestive system herb, stimulating the production of digestive enzymes and has relaxing and calming properties.
Chamomile is mentioned in ancient herbal pharmacopoeias and is still one of the favourite plants used by modern day Medical Herbalists.

If you want to drink it as a soothing night time drink instead of tea or coffee, you can usually find a preparation on the shelf of most supermarkets. Make sure these do contain just chamomile, as many herb teas are blends of plants.
You can also buy the loose flowers from an herb supplier or if you have it in your garden can pick it and dry the flowers to store throughout the year.
The rule of thumb is to use one teaspoon of dry flowers to one cup of boiling water, just as you would make any other tea. Leave this to stand for five minutes, strain, let it cool a bit and drink. Ok if you have a sweet tooth you may put some honey in it, but it does taste nice on its own. Monsieur Poirot (he of the “Poirot ee as been so blind”) calls this a Tisane.

Linda Bostock
Medical Herbalist

Filed Under: Herbs and Health, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Herbs and Dog Walking on the Beach

July 11, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Around about 9 o’clock every week day morning, the dog and I walk across the road to the beach. He is of course, only interested in all the other doggy smells and trots around doing his own thing, following, but completely ignoring me. He is not the kind of dog who likes to chase after balls or stones or run around excitedly with other dogs, NO, smells are his thing. That’s ok though because I can peacefully think my morning thoughts and have a look at what is going around me.

Usually at this time of year the beach, which is a shingle beach by the way, is a mass of colour with so many different plants it is hard to separate them. But this year we have had very little rain in April and May and a friend asked me if the beach had been sprayed with weed killer the plants are so sparse!

What we have got is spread out and fairly scrawny, but for whatever reason there is a bit of a Poppy Fest going on down there with:-

Opium poppies

Yellow Horned poppies

Field poppies

They are all competing to put on the best show and reminding me of the flower fairies.

Opium poppies

Well you may think that Afghanistan has the monopoly on these but they grow very well in England. Before the advent of modern painkillers the opium poppy was the best herbal pain relief as it contains Morphine alkaloids and codeine. The resin from the seed head is collected and dried and used medicinally. Sadly both morphine and codeine are addictive so herbalists are no longer allowed to use the plant medicinally.

Opium Poppies on the Beach

Morphine sits on the same nerve ending receptors as our own natural pain killers called Endorphins and block the pain sensation being transmitted along the nerve pathways.

Never mind, even though we are not allowed to use them medicinally, we can look at them and that is a real feast for the eyes. There are several different colours on the beach varying from a pale mauve to a deep red in all shapes and sizes.

Yellow Horned poppies

These are gorgeous, with bright yellow open flowers and long spiky seed heads which look like horns, hence the name!

To be honest I don’t know if they have ever had a medicinal use but certainly they are not used by herbalists now.

Yellow Horned Poppies

Field poppies

Not so many of these as of the other two and mostly in the hedgerow in the track leading from the beach to the campsite.

It takes your breath away when you look at a plant as perfect and beautiful as the field poppy. A bit like looking at your new born baby and being amazed that all those little fingers and toes are so small and so perfect.

Field Poppies on the Beach

They are a fantastic deep red in colour with a black centre.

Here at last is a plant we can use medicinally. It has calming properties and I have picked the flowers in the past and made syrup with them.

To make the syrup, pick the poppy flowers and layer them in a clean jam jar with sugar. As they compress down, keep topping the jar up.

Put the lid on the jar and leave it in the sun or a warm place for a bout two weeks until the sugar has melted and turned red.

Strain this syrup into another clean jam jar seal it and use it as needed.

A teaspoonful just before bed will help aid a natural relaxed sleep or it can also be used to ease a tickly cough.

The poppy I use frequently in my clinic is the Californian poppy, which has hypnotic and sedative properties as well as being a nerve relaxant. I put it into my mixes for patients suffering from Insomnia to help them relax into a natural sleep.

When you watch the Video, apart from the poppies, take a look at the Martello tower. The Martello towers were built all along the southern coast during the Napoleonic wars as a defence to attack from the sea. They are spaced out at about 500 yard intervals, the next one along towards Hastings being converted to a house. The one on our beach is occupied by the pigeons and was scarily undermined by the terrible autumn storms last year which washed away about 20-30 feet of beach. A couple of years ago an autumn storm washed away another part of the beach and exposed a series of stakes sticking up from the beach in a grid pattern which we were told were also Napoleonic beach defences. Luckily I had my camera with me that day so got a good record of them before the shingle Lorries came and built the beach up again.

As usual there is a separate poppy article in the Herbs and Health section and please do  join me on my next herb walk.

Linda

Linda Bostock

Medical Herbalist

Filed Under: Video herb walks Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Poppies – the Natural Pain Killer

June 16, 2011 by Leave a Comment

POPPIES

It is such a great shame that medication with the opium poppy, Papaver somniferum, is addictive and therefore not permitted to be used as a plant medicine. It has strong pain killing properties as it contains morphine alkaloids and codeine and before the arrival of modern pain killers it was the best analgesic in the herbal pharmacopoeia.

poppy seed heads at North harbour beach

The poppy species practitioners can use, though, is the Californian poppy, Escholzia californica.this has mild pain relieving properties and is a sedative and nerve relaxant.
I use it as a tincture combined with Passiflora and Wild lettuce to help people with Insomnia.
There is also the field poppy just coming into flower now and oh so pretty.

yellow poppies on the beach

The flowers only last a day and are very fragile. I have picked the flowers in the past and layered them with sugar in a jam jar to make syrup. I topped the jar up with flowers and syrup as everything compressed down and left it to stand for three weeks on a window ledge, in sunlight.
Then I poured the resulting syrup into another clean jam jar and stored it with the lid on.
A teaspoon of this syrup before bedtime, will help relax people with insomnia into a natural sleep, or help to ease a tickly cough.

More poppies on the beach

There are the usual cautions attached to this:-
These articles are not intended to encourage you to self medicate but for you to develop an interest in plant medicines.
Do not self medicate if you are on any orthodox medicines
Find a qualified practitioner if you need help with plant medicines.
Don’t experiment with plants on yourself or other people. Plants do not suffer fools gladly, even potatoes in their ancient form were poisonous and in fact any green areas in a potato contain an alkaloid similar to that found in deadly nightshade!
Enjoy looking, smelling and learning. Plants are our life givers.

Linda Bostock
Medical Herbalist Dip Phyt.

Filed Under: Herbs and Health Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Herb Walk Around Pevensey Castle, May 2011

June 16, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Herbs and History

I may have mentioned before, that the wind always blows by the seaside.

Well the day we went to do our herb walk at Pevensey Castle, just outside Eastbourne, the wind was very definitely blowing which made the sound recorded on the video come out like a “hounds of the Baskervilles” take.

We went to look at the Pellitory, which grows on the walls of the castle and the lime trees growing in Westham churchyard adjacent to the castle, in the next village along.

Pellitory climbing castle wall

Pevensey Castle was originally built by the Romans and the Roman walls are pretty much in tact all the way around. It was in the bay a short distance from the Roman Castle, (not Hastings) that the Normans landed in 1066 and built the first Norman castle inside the Roman walls, using the walls as part of the castle construction. Next door to the castle, in the village of Westham, is a church reputed to be the first ever church built by the Normans.
We are always astounded that the site is not constantly overrun by tourists as it is of such historical significance, but it seems to be a bit of a secret tourist attraction.
Many plants grow on the Roman walls which are constructed from flint, with tile layers interspersed, I presume to act as a damp proof course.
The plants I have seen at various times on the walls include, wallflowers, plantain, grasses, stonecrop, red Valerian and of course the Pellitory.
A short distance from the Norman part of the castle, inside the Roman walls is a huge bank of nettles which is fitting as it was the Romans who originally brought the nettles to England, to flail their joints in the cold weather (the Romans were a bit strange but we mustn’t knock them as they left us a legacy of fantastic heating and sewage systems).
Walking through the castle grounds and out through the west gate you immediately enter the village of Westham where the church is.
It is called St Mary’s and is a beautiful church. Behind the church, in the old part of the churchyard, are three magnificent lime trees.

You can complete the walk by turning left at the lime trees and going straight ahead through the newer part of the churchyard which leads to a path taking you behind the castle.

Lime Tree in Westham Churchyard

This is quite interesting as it gives you a good view of how the Norman castle was incorporated into the Roman walls. At the time the Romans landed, the sea came right up to that area and in fact Pevensey is one of the Cinque Ports now left high and dry.
You will find a write up of Lime flower and Pellitory in the herbs section and I will do a more in depth talk on Nettles in another video.

Linda Bostock
Medical herbalist

Filed Under: Video herb walks Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Passiflora or Passion Flower (Passiflora Incarnata)

June 13, 2011 by Leave a Comment

If I want an Herb which really looks after someone suffering from nervous strain, I reach for the Passiflora.

It is such a wonderful gentle, calming, supporting nervine with mild sedative properties, that it is useful for any condition involving stress where the person needs calming and supporting.

Because of these properties, Passiflora may be used for cases of Insomnia, as it calms the brain as well as relaxes the body. One of the problems with insomnia is the brain goes in to hyperdrive and starts thinking about stupid things in a loop system, such as shopping, cleaning, washing, work, children’s activities, anything really, to prevent you getting to sleep.

Passiflora is an Herb which calms this mental restlessness down so that people can fall into a natural relaxed sleep. Night Night!

Don’t use it in pregnancy though; you will just have to put up with that little footballer having fun inside you at two o’clock in the morning.

Linda Bostock

Medical Herbalist

Filed Under: Herbs and Health Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Lime Flowers – from Pevensey Castle Herb Walk

June 13, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Lime Flowers
Tilia Europea
Herb Walk near Pevensey Castle in Westham Norman churchyard.
24.05.2011

The dried flowers are used which contain volatile oils, mucilage, tannins, and flavonoids.

The flowers have antispasmodic, diaphoretic (make you sweat) sedative and diuretic properties. They are also known to clean out arteries which have fatty deposits on the walls.

Apart from anything else, being gently sedative and antispasmodic they make a good calming and relaxing night time drink as they are low in tannins and taste good.

I often add lime flower to a mixture of herbs in tincture form for a blood pressure mix (usual warning, don’t self medicate if you have high blood pressure consult a Doctor or a Qualified medical herbalist).

Linda Bostock
Medical Herbalist. Dip.Phyt

Filed Under: Herbs and Health Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

A Herb Walk at the Long Man of Wilmington, May 2011

June 7, 2011 by Leave a Comment

What a glorious walk we went on today. It was one of those perfect days, blue skies and little fluffy clouds. Not too hot and not cold.

We are looking after our daughter’s dog while she and her boyfriend are on holiday.

Her name is Bo but AS-BO suits her much better as she tries to rule the household somewhat.

We took her and Henry dog and ourselves to the long Man in Wilmington which is about a 10 minute drive from our home and in the South Downs.

The long man is a chalk figure carved into the hillside, but is a bit of an enigma as no one knows its actual date. It could be ancient or it could be Victorian. Certainly the Victorians are known to have put white brick on the figure to preserve it.

It is an unusual chalk figure as it appears to be holding walking sticks and has no male bits and pieces which makes me favour the Victorian theory, or it is actually a long woman.

At the Foot of the Long Man of Wilmington

Above the long man are some very ancient burial barrows so the whole area has a magical feel to it.

Today I wanted to go and photograph a hawthorn tree that is half way up the hill, which I have been photographing in all seasons and all  weathers.

On our way up the hill I saw that the elder flower in the hedgerow is just starting to flower and the wild plants in the hedgerow, cow parsley, nettles, dock and herb Robert were all growing so profusely the path was about half the size it normally is.

There were sky larks singing whilst on the wing and sheep in the field. The colours seemed exceptionally vibrant with the grass very green, the sky very blue and the sheep with their babies very white and fluffy.

We walked right up above the long man and stood on the barrows turning a 360 circle to see the countryside around us.

View from the Long Man

From there you can see the sea towards Brighton, the White horse chalk carving on the opposite hill, Arlington reservoir, the undulating weald and the South Downs heading off towards Eastbourne where they end. It is a view that makes you catch your breath every time and not just because you are panting and puffing from having climbed the hill to get up there!

Very often on our walks on the downs we find off cuts of worked flints which would have been used as small knives and scrapers, but today I kicked a piece of chalk on the path and when I looked down at it, saw that it had an Ammonite imprint on it as well as some shell imprints. Just a little reminder of how the South Downs were formed!

Right at the end of the walk and due to the dog running in to the edge of the field we saw a largish patch of fumitory growing. I was rather pleased as I have not seen fumitory growing in East Sussex before although I know it likes scrubby land.

I love that walk and confess I take all our visitors there.

To read more about the plants seen in this video, go to the ‘Herbs and Health’ section of the site. To find out more about the conditions mentioned, go to the ‘Health’ section

Linda Bostock

Medical Herbalist

Filed Under: Uncategorized, Video herb walks Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

About Me and Herbal Medicine

May 23, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Hi,

Linda

My name is Linda Bostock,

I qualified as a medical herbalist in 1993 after completing a four year diploma course at the school of Phytotherapy in East Sussex and have been running my clinic of herbal medicine since then, first in Slough and now in Eastbourne.

My oldest daughter had suffered very badly with allergies and food intolerance and had ended up at age 15, 5’7” tall, in hospital weighing 7 stone and very unwell. Despite me telling the nurses at registration that she had several allergies to medicines and listing them all and specifying that she must not be given anything orally without me being informed, she was given the drug Stemetil, to which she had a terrible reaction, causing her to have severe muscle spasms which affected her breathing.

The nurses and doctors at the time treated us appallingly, insinuating she was suffering from anorexia and as I had just had another baby she was attention seeking!!!! It took me about 4 hours of serious hassling to get a consultant to come and see her at 2 am, who laughed and said yes, Stemetil was known to have that reaction.

So I sat by her bed all night thinking this child, this precious, fantastic person I had nurtured for the past 15 years was going to die because nobody in that hospital cared. At 7 am I made them take her off her drip, picked her up from her hospital bed, carried her back to the car, took her home and phoned our G.P.

By the time we were together enough to ask to see her notes, they were predictably “lost”. Our G.P. Dr. Eyres was a slightly quirky slightly unorthodox man who would ask you if you had a cigarette on you that he could borrow, when you went in to the surgery (none of us have ever smoked so we never did), but who I trusted completely with my children’s lives.

Between the two of us we cared for her by putting her on a strict vegetarian diet and not giving her any foods that contained additives. She recovered slowly and now, at age 40 is married with her own three gorgeous children.

But I decided then that I would never sit beside a child’s bed and feel so hopeless and helpless. So with 2 big children, 2 little children, husband, house, garden, cats and working as an auxiliary nurse at the local hospital in the evenings (yes the same one) I embarked on a four year diploma course of herbal medicine, at that time the only accredited one in the world, which I did so that I could keep my children healthy, but discovered it was what I was supposed to be doing in life.

I will be taking you on herb walks on this site and pointing out the wealth of medicinal plants we all have growing in our local areas, even in towns. I will give an explanation of the medicinal properties of the plants, hopefully using examples of conditions for which they have been used in my Clinic.

I’ll also be reviewing topical conditions and treatments and a variety of over the counter products available for their treatment. It is very important to know when to self treat and when to seek professional help either from your Doctor or from a fully qualified herbal medicine practitioner and I will advise on this.

Please contact me below, if you would like to share any experiences with me. I would also be very interested to hear about medicinal plants that you have seen growing in your part of the world.

[si-contact-form form='1']

Linda Bostock, EzineArticles Basic Author

Filed Under: About Me Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Walk Around West Rise Marsh with video

May 16, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Hi

My name is Linda Bostock, I qualified as a medical herbalist in 1993 after completing a four year diploma course at the school of Phytotherapy in East Sussex and have been running my clinic of herbal medicine since then, first in Slough and now in Eastbourne.

Over the next few months, I will be filming a number of herbal walks, firstly in the beautiful part of the country I live in, East Sussex, and then wider afield. I would like to invite you to come with me either through my text description or the films that I will be making.

The first herb walk is in an area near where we live in Eastbourne called West Rise marsh, which is a great dog walking place. It is a lake formed from an old gravel pit and like many once abandoned areas is now a mini nature reserve with interesting plant and bird life. The area is now managed by the caretaker of the local primary school who keeps Water Buffalo on the land and I have had interesting times observing the Buffalo, especially the new calf that was born at the end of last year. Throughout the year there are many different water fowls that visit the lake and I have often watched the ungainly landings or takings off of visiting swans. There are always Reed warblers flitting around the reed beds and in the summer Swallows and Swifts swooping around catching insects.

The two plants we are looking at on this herb walk are, Hawthorn and Cramp Bark, but we also stop and look at two other plants, Goosegrass and Water Dropwort.

Cramp Bark

Crampbark

Hawthorn in the hedgerow

Hawthorn

I suppose I am the equivalent of a twitcher, except I like to collect knowledge of medicinal plants I have seen growing in the countryside, on my walks, but I don’t have to hide in a little wooden shed to see them!!!!. It still, after all this time, makes me feel thrilled to see plants I commonly use in my clinic, to treat various medical conditions, growing all around us.

I hope you enjoy these herb walks and if you have any interesting plants growing around you please share them with us on the website and we could all have a chat about them.

Sadly with the loss of so much countryside and pesticide use, our plants are all endangered species, an example of which is red clover. Red clover used to grow in all the fields when I was a child. I remember picking it and sucking the flower (we didn’t worry whether the cows had peed on it!) which was slightly sweet from the nectar it contained. Now I rarely see it, but when I do I get so excited!

So keep your eyes open next time you are walking around and look at the plants growing wild/in gardens/in the countryside. They may well be the origins of medicines you are taking.

If you would like to write to me about anything in this article or about medicinal plants you have seen in your area, please complete the form below.

Linda Bostock

Medical Herbalist

[si-contact-form form='1']

Filed Under: Video herb walks Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,
«Previous Page