Plant Profiles A - H
Get to know our plant neighbors that thrive in southern Minnesota! New profiles are added all the time, so check back!
Anise Hyssop
Agastache foeniculum
🜁 ☿
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Agastache foeniculum is a beautiful aromatic species and culinary herb native to Minnesota. Because its gorgeous flowers are reminiscent of lavender, it is sometimes referenced as Lavender Hyssop, but there is no relation or similarity in aroma.
Anise Hyssop has a complex herbal aroma, with soft notes of camphor, spice, and a creamy, almost marshmallow-like anise note. The leaves and flowers impart a sweet taste to tea and baked goods.
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As a native perennial, Anise Hyssop attracts bees, butterflies and hummingbirds, and are particularly loved by soldier beetles, a beneficial, orange-colored pollinator.
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Anise Hyssop is an uplifting herb that brings joy, calm, and sweetness to life.
Corresponds to: 🜁 Air + ☿ Mercury, with a sweet ♀ Venusian influence
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Coming Soon!
🝊 Incense Bundles
🝊 Hag Tapers
🝊 Ritual Oil
Calendula
Calendula officinalis
🜂 ☉
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Calendula officinalis comes in a variety of colors, but the one we grow boasts beautiful, bright orange blossoms that open with the sun. The sticky blooms have a fresh and resinous aroma. The petals add a pop of color when sprinkled atop soups or added into tea blends. It can also be used as an alternative to saffron.
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Calendula attracts bees and other beneficial insects and pollinators. It also repels pests such as nematodes and aphids that can cause damage to other plants.
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Calendula opens during the day, and its varied tones reflect the fiery hues of the sun. Calendula brings warmth and joy, growth, good fortune and vitality.
Corresponds with: 🜂 Fire + ☉ Sun
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🝊 and many other products!
Cedar
Thuja occidentalis
🜂 ☉
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Northern White Cedar, Thuja occidentalis, is a unique evergreen whose leaves contain the aroma of sweet sap and fresh conifer forests. It is common all over the state of Minnesota where it is native.
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White Cedar provides nesting habitats for warblers and cedar waxwings, and the miniature cones contain seeds that are eaten by cardinals, juncos and pine siskins.
Snowshoe hares, porcupines and deer all feed on the foliage.
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Cedar is healing and protective, and is used in incense rituals for cleansing and invigorating spaces.
Corresponds to: 🜂 Fire + ☉ Sun
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🝊 Various incense blends and bundles
Coreopsis
Coreopsis tinctoria
🜂 ☉
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Coreopsis tinctoria, also known as Golden Tickseed or Calliopsis, is a native wildflower with edible petals that can be used as a garnish or boiled into tea. It is also used to make dyes in lovely shades of yellow, orange and brown.
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Plains Coreopsis nectar feeds insects, butterflies and bees, even in periods of drought. The seeds are eaten by several species of birds.
It can establish itself in poor soils that are generally liked by invasive species, making it an important native.
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The striking colors of Plains Coreopsis light up the prairie. In the language of flowers, coreopsis is “always cheerful,” and it generates positivity, happiness, and warmth.
Corresponds to: 🜂 Fire + ☉ Sun
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🝊 used in limited edition dyed goods 🝊
Crabapple
Malus spp.
🜄 ♀
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Malus spp are an abundant species, prevalent in Europe and Asia, with a few species native to North America. A cascade of blossoms fill the trees every spring, which turn into an abundant crop in the fall. Most crabapples are very tart and high in pectin, making them excellent for jam.
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These small, heavily flowered trees provide food for pollinators in the spring and nesting habitat for robins and other birds.
In the fall, crabapples are eaten by squirrels and deer. The Golden Raindrops crabapple variety produces tiny yellow fruit that turn orange and red when ripe, and are eaten by cardinals, jays, robins, cedar waxwings, juncos, and many others.
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Apples in general are associated with longevity, good health, love and luck. Crabapples, specifically, represent beauty, abundance and good fortune.
Corresponds to: 🜄 Water + ♀ Venus
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🝊 used in limited edition, springtime beauty products and candles 🝊
Dandelion
Taraxacum officinale
🜂 ☉
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Taraxacum officinale is a highly underrated medicinal plant and food source, erroneously labeled as a “weed.” The entire plant is edible - the roots can be roasted and made into a drink reminiscent of coffee (but without the caffeine), the leaves can be added to soups and salads, and the flowers can be made into fritters, wine, or jellies and syrups that taste just like honey.
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Dandelions are one of the first food sources for bees in the spring, and continue to nourish the wildlife as long as they are in bloom.
They are also good for your lawn - the strong taproots help aerate the soil and minimize erosion.
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Dandelions are sunny, cheery little beings that are associated with making wishes. They symbolize happiness, dream-chasing, and childlike wonder.
Corresponds to: 🜂 Fire + ☉ Sun
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🝊 used in ritual oils, balms and limited edition springtime blends 🝊
Echinacea
Echinacea purpurea
🜂 ♂
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Echinacea purpurea, also known as Purple Coneflower, is a Minnesota native prairie plant that is most known for its healing roots and leaves that are often used in teas and herbal supplements.
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Echinacea is an important prairie plant that supports monarchs, painted ladies and swallowtails, as well as other pollinators. In the fall and winter, it provides a food source for birds such as cardinals, blue jays and goldfinches. Its strong roots help build and maintain healthy soil.
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Echinacea has a strong and commanding presence that reminds us to be sure of ourselves. It is used to bring health, protection, and confidence.
Corresponds to: 🜂 Fire + ♂ Mars
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Coming Soon!
🝊 Incense
🝊 Hag Tapers
🝊 Ritual Oil
Balsam Fir
Abies balsamea
🜂 ♂
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Abies balsamea is used in smoke cleansing rituals for its fresh, resinous aroma. The absolute obtained from the needles smells of clean forests and spoonfuls of jam. It’s a medium-sized conifer native to Minnesota, and the spring tips are dried and made into tea for their high vitamin C content.
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The needles are eaten by by Io Moth caterpillars, moose and deer, and the seeds feed squirrels, chickadees and grouse.
They also provide shelter for moose, small mammals and birds.
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Balsam fir helps manifest wellness, mental fortitude, and freedom from negative influences.
Corresponds to: 🜂 Fire + ♂ Mars
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🝊 balsam fir is an ingredient in perfume and incense blends 🝊
Goldenrod
Solidago spp.
🜂 ☉
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Solidigo washes the landscape with gold every summer’s end, marking the eventual decline into autumn. This Minnesota native blooms at the same time as Ragweed, whose pollen is a common allergen, so it often has a bad reputation for causing allergies. Its pollen is too heavy to travel well in the air, so while it is possible to be allergic, it is most likely not the culprit for seasonal sniffles.
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Not only is Goldenrod frequented by bees (and they make delicious goldenrod honey), but they are also a key species for butterflies and parasitic wasps to lay their eggs. Goldenrod sees the eggs as a threat, and so forms a gall around them, which protects the eggs inside from the outside elements.
Woodpeckers are smart, though, and you can sometimes see them feeding on the insect larvae inside the galls.
Goldenrod also establishes itself well in disturbed soil that would otherwise be taken over by invasive species.
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Goldenrod marks the changing of the seasons, and is associated with fresh beginnings. It’s golden color is associated with drawing wealth, fortune, and happiness.
Corresponds to: 🜂 Fire + ☉ Sun
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🝊 goldenrod is used in limited edition dyed goods and botanical jewelry 🝊
Marigold
Tagetes spp.
🜂 ☉
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The main varieties of Marigold grown on the farm are the French Marigold and Cempazúchitl, which is sometimes known as African Marigold despite being native to the americas.
Cempazúchitl is used in Mexico to make garlands and decorate ofrendas (altars for deceased family members) during Dia de los Muertos - Day of the Dead. Bright orange rivers of cempazúchitl flowers flow from the front door to the ofrenda to guide parted family members home and to their offerings.
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Marigolds excel at deterring pests such as mosquitos and cabbage worms due to their strong aroma. This same aroma, interestingly, attracts beneficial bugs to the farm and garden that feed on aphids.
They also contain thiophene, a toxin that reduces nematodes in the soil.
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Like other fiery blooms that are associated with the sun, Marigolds represent strength, vitality, and power.
Additionally, Cempazúchitl is used to guide souls home during Dia de los Muertos.
Corresponds to: 🜂 Fire + ☉ Sun
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🝊 used in limited edition dyed goods 🝊
Mountain Ash
Sorbus americana
🜂 ☉
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The beautiful mountain ash is sometimes called Rowan, to which it is closely related. This variety is native to the US and can be found all over Minnesota. It has bright red berries and colorful fall foliage that changes from shades of green to yellow, orange, and red .
Mountain Ash is not a true ash tree, but it gets the name due to the leaves’ resemblance to ash trees. It is actually an understory tree in the rose family!
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Mountain Ash produces a feast of red-orange berries for birds such as grouse, robins, grosbeaks and gulls, and they cling to the branches throughout the winter.
The leaves, berries, bark and twigs are also a food source for moose, rabbits, white tailed deer, squirrels, marten, and other animals.
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Mountain Ash is sometimes referred to as witchwood, due to the five-pointed star found on the bottom of the berries. Its folkloric uses include protection against witchcraft and the evil eye, and hex breaking.
Much of the folklore comes from the Rowan tree, which is closely related and native to Europe. It was used to protect livestock from harm, offer courage, and ensure travelers never lost their way.
Corresponds to: 🜂 Fire + ☉ Sun
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🝊 found in limited edition dyed goods 🝊
Mountain Mint
Pycanthemum tenuifolium
🜁 ☿
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Mountain Mint is a Minnesota native that neither grows in the mountains, nor is a mint! In fact, this variety, Slender Mountain Mint, doesn’t even smell or taste very minty at all!
When brewed into tea, it tastes like a slightly bitter, floral green tea. When burned as incense, it has a complex aroma - minty, herbaceous, and woody, with notes of citrus and sage.
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Mountain Mint is beloved by pollinators. It has a relatively long blooming season, which provides nectar for an incredibly diverse array of butterflies, bees, wasps, and insects.
It’s a perennial plant, too, which is good for the soil.
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Slender Mountain Mint is used to enhance communication and the ability to express ideas. It is uplifting, cleansing, and when burned, invites good energy into the home.
Corresponds to: 🜁 Air + ☿ Mercury
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Mullein
Verbascum thapsus
🜃 ♄
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Verbascum thapsus is a biennial plant with large, fuzzy leaves. In its first year, Mullein doesn’t get much bigger than the picture seen below. In the second year, it shoots up a giant spike full of yellow, edible flowers. The leaves are dried and made into tea or tinctures, which is something I’m sure to keep on hand every winter.
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Naturalized in most of the US, Mullein thrives in poor soils that are undesirable to our native plant species. Mullein increases pollinator density, and provides a rich food source for many of our birds, including bluebirds, tanagers and chickadees.
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Great Mullein towers above most plants with a long, thick stalk full of yellow flowers. It’s a commanding plant used for healing rituals and guidance. In the language of flowers, Mullein represents good nature. It creates a grounded atmosphere for listening to one’s intuition.
In ancient Greece, torches were made from mullein stalks dipped in fat as funerary torches.
Corresponds to: 🜂 Fire + ☉ Sun
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🝊 mullein can be found in our wide selection of hag tapers 🝊
Peony
Paeonia spp.
🜄 ♀
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Paeonia is a luscious flower native to Europe and Asia that can be found in colors ranging from white to deep red. It emits a soft floral fragrance that is attractive to humans and pollinators alike!
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Peonies provide a food source for ants, who then protect the peonies from other pests.
Single-flowered peonies are better for pollinators than the double-flowered varieties, which are bred for appearance rather than their ecological value.
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In the Language of Flowers, Peonies represent honor, good fortune and romance, and they fill the air with an uplifting fragrance.
Corresponds to: 🜄 Water + ♀ Venus
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🝊 Coming Soon! 🝊
Raspberry
Rubus spp.
🜄 ♀
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Rubus idaeus is a Minnesota native berry that is slowly, but enthusiastically, taking over the back of the homestead. Everyone knows how good the berries are, but the leaf is often overlooked. It makes a refreshing summer time tea, especially sipped cold and combined with a handful of berries!
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Raspberries are an important food source for birds and mammals, including black bears, skunks, raccoons, squirrels, rabbits and deer. Even foxes and opossums will nibble on these berries, so it’s no wonder they quickly disappear soon after they ripen - just about all of our wild neighbors want a share!
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Raspberries symbolize protection, motherly love, abundance and bounty, and fertility.
Corresponds with: 🜄 Water + ♀ Venus
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🝊 Coming Soon! 🝊
Wild Rose
Rosa spp.
🜄 ♀
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Rosa spp. grows in a feral tangle of flowers and thorns, and produces an abundance of gorgeous red-orange hips every summer and fall. Rosehips are the fruiting bodies of roses, and are tart and delicious, full of vitamin C, and make a wonderful tea.
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Roses provide nectar for bees and beetles, and the hips are eaten by nearly everything - bears, deer, skunks, squirrels and rabbits, to name a few. Birds such as redwing blackbirds, cedar waxwings and thrushes also eat the hips and disperse the seeds.
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Wild Roses have a history of use in healing and skincare, and flowers are given to show love and gratitude. They are used to create luck, self love, confidence and good fortune.
Corresponds with: 🜄 Water + ♀ Venus
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🝊 Coming Soon! 🝊
Tamarack
Larix laricina
🜄 ☽
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Larix laricina is unique and beautiful. It has shallow roots, so is often found growing in peatbogs and near bodies of water. Its gentle needles are perfectly soft to the touch, and turn brilliant yellow in the autumn and fall alongside other autumn leaves.
Like most conifers, tamarack’s needles are edible and high in vitamin C.
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Tamarack is a food source for snowshoe hares, porcupines, and grouse, but it isn’t browsed by many species.
It does provide breeding and nesting habitats for birds, however, and shade cover for bear and moose.
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Tamarack embodies gentleness. It is supportive and healing, helping one find space to address mental, physical and emotional needs.
Corresponds with: 🜄 Water + ☽ Moon
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🝊 The soft tamarack needles are collected from fallen branches and are used as compostable void fill in my 24k Gold Perfume Boxes, while supplies lasts 🝊
Wild Violet
Viola spp.
🜄 ♀
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Viola spp. is an important native groundcover with edible leaves and flowers. The young leaves are a great addition to salads, and the flowers can be candied, made into jelly, or used as a garnish.
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Violet is an important host plant for Great Spangled Fritillary caterpillars, which turn into a pretty, orange butterfly. It’s also a food source for small herbivores, caterpillars and ants. The flowers feed bees, butterflies and other insects, and is one of the first sources of nectar in the spring.
They are useful as a native groundcover around perennials, trees and shrubs.
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In the language of flowers, violets represent love everlasting, remembrance and spiritual wisdom. They evoke tenderness, sweetness, healing, and beauty, and are used to aid divination.
Corresponds with: 🜄 Water + ♀ Venus
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🝊 Wild Violet Facial Serum
White Sagebrush
Artemisia ludoviciana
🜁 ♃
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Artemisia ludoviciana, also known as Prairie Sage, Silver Wormwood and Owyhee, is a beautiful, silvery-white perennial found in prairies and grasslands all over the state. It was used extensively by Native Americans in medicine and ceremony.
White Sagebrush has an intense aroma when burned, somewhat similar to white sage. The essential oil, commonly known as Owyhee, has a fruity, medicinal, herbaceous fragrance.
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Artemisia ludoviciana, also known as Prairie Sage, Silver Wormwood and Owyhee, is a beautiful, silvery-white perennial found in prairies and grasslands all over the state. It was used extensively by Native Americans in medicine and ceremony.
White Sagebrush has an intense aroma when burned, somewhat similar to white sage. The essential oil, commonly known as Owyhee, has a fruity, medicinal, herbaceous fragrance.
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White Sagebrush is used in smoke cleansing rituals for clarity, health, protection, and expansion.
Corresponds with: 🜁 Air + ♃ Jupiter
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Yarrow
Achillea millefolium
🜄 ♀
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Achillea millefolium is a white yarrow with a huge native range - it is found in Asia, Europe and North America. It is often found growing alongside purple coneflower, milkweed and other prairie plants. Yarrow is used in herbal medicine, aromatherapy and skincare.
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Yarrow has a pungent aroma that is very good at attracting pests - and the beneficial bugs that eat them!
It also adds silica and calcium to depleted soils.
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Yarrow is used extensively in healing magic due to its nurturing, loving, and careful energy. Her magic is slow, lasting and precise.
Corresponds with: 🜄 Water + ♀ Venus
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🝊 Wild Violet Facial Serum