Garden Witchery Page 3
The main purpose of a garden is to
give its owner the best and highest kind
of earthly pleasure.
Gertrude Jekyll
Meet Your Magickal Yard
As a working mother, wife, and witch, I often look to the simplest of nature’s supplies to fill my magickal needs. My garden is usually the first place I go. Take a walk around the yard and see what treasures you find. Changing leaves, crunchy pine cones, maybe a fallen feather, a perfect rosebud. How can you incorporate these things into magick? Use your imagination.
All those herbs, flowers, and trees are waiting for you to notice them. There is more to the trees in your yard than sheltering the home and increasing the property value. Trees are magick. The structure or bones of a garden are its trees. They provide habitat, food, and shelter for wildlife, as well as supplies for the garden witch.
Trees are among a witch’s very best friends. Tree magick is accessible and user friendly. No excuses, now, just about everybody has access to a tree or two. If not in the backyard, dare I mention the park?
Nature is sacred. This is one of those lessons you should remember from your neophyte witch days. I have the hardest time trying to get folks to understand. Get off of your computers for a few hours. Reconnect with the Earth. Do one simple thing that will change the way you view your earth religion . . . guess what that is? Go outside! Nature is waiting for you. The God and Goddess are all around you.
The blue jays and cardinals raiding the bird feeder have a message for you. The butterflies that take refuge in your flower garden are happy to see you. Feel the breeze; refreshing, isn’t it? Listen. What do you hear? Was that the neighbor’s cat just romping in the catnip? Uh-oh, now my two cats are glaring at me to let them go play in the garden. Breathe deep, what do you smell? The neighbors’ barbecue? Chimney smoke? Roses? Do you see the new crescent in the western sky tonight at sunset? Isn’t she lovely? Get those five-plus senses involved. If you want to work in harmony with nature, you need to become aware of the natural world around you.
An excellent exercise for a new witch or one who needs a jumpstart to get them tuned back in to nature is to go outside and observe the night sky for ten minutes every night for a month. If you want to start at the new moon and go to the next new moon, that’s good also.
Garden Witchery Quiz
Let’s consider this a little homework assignment for you. You can get your hands dirty and start thinking garden witch thoughts. Here are some questions for you to look up and answer. Go crazy—buy yourself a spiral notebook for seventy-nine cents and write down your answers or use the space provided in the gardening journal beginning on page 205. Also, you could use this book for note keeping on your moon gazing for a month.
1. What direction does your house/apartment face?
2. Where does the sun rise and set at your house (front, side, or back)?
3. What phase is the moon in right now? (It doesn’t count if you looked this question up and then wrote down the answer. You should know this one cold!)
4. Do you have trees in your yard? How many? What kind?
5. What species of birds show up at the bird feeder? What is your state bird?
6. Do you have any perennials in your yard or flowers growing in pots or baskets? What are they? What variety of grass (as in your lawn) do you have in your yard?
7. What is the soil like? Do you have loam or clay? Is it sandy or rocky?
8. (Bonus question) What cold hardiness zone do you live in?
Answers . . . and More Questions
The point of the previous questions was to get you thinking. I bet you knew a lot of the answers. If not—well, you wanted to learn something new, didn’t you? The reason for questions number one and two is to have you pay attention to where your sun and shade patterns fall on your property, to ensure that you plant the right flower, herb, or shrub in the correct spot. For instance, if you wanted to plant a hydrangea shrub, where do you suppose would be the best location for planting? Hydrangeas thrive in afternoon shade. Do you even know where you have full afternoon shade? Better head outside and check it out.
Get a piece of paper and draw out a rough map of your home, or use this book’s journal. You are going to make a map of your shade patterns. Relax, this doesn’t have to be fancy. Begin at 8:00 a.m. and draw in any shaded areas that you may have. Check your yard every two hours and adjust the shady areas with dashed lines as the day progresses. (Note the time as you go along.) Keep track of the sun and shade patterns until 6:00 p.m. that evening. There, now you have a better idea of where you can successfully plant those shade- and sun-loving plants.
Grab a shovel and turn over a small section of your future garden. What’s out there? Are you going to have to amend the soil? You’ll want to get some organic matter back into the soil to encourage healthy plant growth, improve drainage, and make your soil easier to work with.
What should you look for? Every yard is unique with its soil requirements. I suggest going to a reputable nursery and asking what they recommend for your area. It’s a pretty safe bet that composted manure, humus, and some topsoil will be on that list. These inexpensive soil amendments are found in most garden centers across the country. If you need a large quantity of topsoil you may want to consider buying it in bulk. Or check a local nursery and find out how much they charge to have topsoil delivered.
Remember to work these amendments into the soil that you already have. Turn over the soil, break up the large pieces, and work the amendments down into your existing soil. If you have a large bed planned or are worried that it may be too much for you to handle by yourself, call in a few friends. Try using a rototiller. They make short work of this type of situation. Rent one if necessary. Or add those amendments to your soil the old-fashioned way: with a shovel, a hoe, and a rake.
The last question on your quiz addresses the cold hardiness zone. You have seen these maps before. Every gardening magazine has one. A cold hardiness zone map is a map of the United States that shows the average minimum winter temperatures.
Plants can be classified as either hardy or nonhardy, depending on their ability to withstand cold temperatures. Before you purchase a new plant, check the plant tags for zone requirements. If the plant tag lists a higher number than the zone that you live in, the plant will probably not survive your winter season. For example, if you live in zone 5 and you pick up a shrub that says it is only hardy to zone 7, then you have a great likelihood of losing that plant to winter injury. Winter injury can occur to nonhardy plants if winter temperatures are too low or if unseasonably low temperatures occur in fall or late spring.
Being aware of the shade patterns, your soil type, and what cold hardiness zone you live in are important tools to help you achieve success in the garden. Go on, do your homework and let’s get ready to garden.
Range of Average Annual Minimum Temperatures for Each Zone
Zone 1
Below -50° F
Zone 2
-50° to -40°
Zone 3
-40° to -30°
Zone 4
-30° to -20°
Zone 5
-20° to -10°
Zone 6
-10° to 0°
Zone 7
0° to 10°
Zone 8
10° to 20°
Zone 9
20° to 30°
Zone 10
30° to 40°
Zone 11
Above 40°
He that plants trees
loves others besides himself.
Thomas Fuller
Trees
Question number four of our garden witchery quiz asked about trees. What species of trees do you have at home—old maples and elms? Do you have any blooming trees, like a pink flowering crab? You don’t have just one tree, standing out in the middle of your yard like a lone soldier, do you? Maybe we should get him some company. If you don’t have any trees in your yard or you’d like to add a few to the landscape, go to a nursery and pick some out. How about a magickal tree? Or would you prefer an ornamental? I promise you, anybody can plant a tree. I’ll tell you how.
Clip the wire cage off of the root ball. Next, dig the hole as deep as the root ball and twice as wide. Ease in the tree, then straighten or turn as needed. Amend your soil with some composted manure mixed into the dirt that you took out of the hole. Root stimulator is good also; follow the directions on the package for amounts. Fill in with soil around the tree, pat the soil around the ball down firmly, and water in well.
Don’t forget to keep watering. The nursery can instruct you as to the proper amount. But remember, a sprinkler for the lawn is not the way to water a tree. (Your grass will soak up all that water, the tree won’t get any of it.) Use a bucket, pour it in slowly. Primitive, yes, but much more effective. Most dead tree returns to nurseries happen because the homeowner didn’t water the tree correctly, or at all.
Here is a short index of trees and their magickal properties. Check your quiz answers and jot down the magickal associations of the trees that you have at home. In this list I tried to specify trees that are usually easy to find and common to most of the United States. For a more complete listing, I recommend Scott Cunningham’s Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs. It’s quite simply the best.
I think that I shall never see
a poem lovely as a tree.
Joyce Kilmer
Common Magickal Trees
Apple (Pyrus). The apple tree is a favorite witch tree. There are many different species and cultivars of the apple. For the average homeowner, growing a dwarf fruit tree is often the most practical, as they bear full-sized fruit and take up less space in the yard. A good apple to try is Golden Delicious. This tree is described as self-fruiting and is often used as a pollinator tree for other apple varieties. The Golden Delicious apple performs well in the cold hardiness zones of 5 to 9. Also a great wood for a magickal wand, the associations of the apple tree are love, health, and garden magick.
Traditionally, a secret way to let someone know that you are a witch is to cut an apple crosswise. The seeds inside are arranged in the shape of a star. The fruit is employed at Mabon and Samhain, and in love spells (see page 63 for a Halloween love spell). A favorite family tradition at my house is to take the family apple picking on the first day of fall, the sabbat of Mabon.
Bay (Laurus nobilis). Also known as sweet bay and bay laurel. In the cold hardiness zones of 8–10 in the United States, this evergreen tree can grow from six to twenty-five feet tall, if protected from winter winds. Smaller, container-size plants are adaptable to being grown in pots and make for lovely topiaries. Grow bay outside in the summer and bring indoors as a houseplant in the winter. The bay tree or the woody potted shrub has dense bright green, rather leathery leaves. The bay tree was sacred to the God Apollo. It has the associations of prophecy, poetry, and healing. A wreath of bay leaves became the symbol of excellence for athletes and poets.
Birch (Betula pendula). The silver birch is a charming and graceful tree with its silvery-white bark and oval-shaped leaves. It may grow twenty to sixty feet in height and the leaves are a lovely shade of yellow in the fall. A traditional broom wood for witches, the wood is also used for Yule logs as well as maypoles. This is also a Goddess tree. The birch is an excellent tree for protection and purification. Zones 2–7.
Dogwood (Cornus florida). The dogwood grows up to thirty feet in height and is a very popular tree in the nursery trade. Spectacular off-white flowers will appear before the leaves unfold. Shiny, medium-sized fruits will show up in the fall, and the birds will thank you for them. The fall foliage is a luminous scarlet. There are pink varieties of the dogwood as well, though the white ones are tougher.
The dogwood tree prefers shade. They require the dappled shade from other taller trees or at least full afternoon shade. (I don’t care what the guy at the nursery says!) The number one dead tree return at every nursery that I have ever worked for is the pink flowering dogwood. The reason? The trees were planted in full all-day sun, and the customers didn’t water them properly. If you want a pink, blooming tree for full sun, try a crab apple instead. (The magickal associations for the crab apple would be the same as the apple. See above.)
The magickal properties of the dogwood are love and protection. Cultivate this blooming tree in your garden to promote a loving and happy home environment. In the language of flowers, the dogwood signifies durability. The dogwood thrives in zones 5–9.
Elder (Sambucus nigra). This small tree grows to fifteen feet. It bears clusters of star-shaped, off-white flowers in early summer, which are followed by dark purple berries in the fall. The berries are high in vitamin C and are utilized in cooking. Elderberries are a popular fruit for jellies and wine making, and it’s a common wild plant that is included in many different country’s magickal plant folklores. Sacred to the Mother and Crone Goddesses, the elder tree has the magickal properties of love and blessings. The leaves and berries are used for protection and in breaking spells that were cast against you. Growing an elder in the garden will protect your property from misfortune and harm. Zones 3–8.
Elm (Ulmus campestris). A tree reported to be popular with the elves, its folk name is elven. Used primarily for love and dream work, this tree is not as popular as it once was, due to Dutch elm disease, which almost wiped out the species in the 1950s. The elm is supposed to protect you from lightning; however, I recommend that you keep them pruned (that’s pruned, not topped—see Topping Trees, page 29) to avoid damage from breaking limbs during high winds. Zones 3–10.
Hawthorn (Crataegus spp.). Valued for their lavish flowers, fruits, and attractive growth habits, hawthorns are dense and thorny. They can be difficult to find in most modern-day nurseries, due to the huge thorns that cover the upper trunk and the branches. If you don’t have any luck locating one, try the Conservation Department instead. If you have an adult hawthorn in your yard, clip off the low-growing thorns to keep your children safe. Zones 4–7. (This zone information may vary slightly for the many different species of the hawthorn.)
The hawthorn tree has a long magickal history. The trinity of faery trees are the oak, the ash, and the thorn. It is said that where these three trees grow together, you would gain the power to see the faeries. Happiness and fertility are the magical associations of this tree.
Maple (Acer). There are several varieties of the maple, including the following: the common silver maple (Acer saccharinum), a wonderful shade tree and a staple in many a yard of older homes like mine. The leaves transform into a soft yellow in the fall. With the sugar maple (Acer saccharum), the sap of this tree may be boiled down to make maple syrup and sugar. The sugar maple’s changing leaves may turn anywhere from a bright yellow to a fire-red color during the fall months. Lastly, there is the red maple (Acer rubrum), one of the first trees to change into a brilliant red color in Missouri. Maple leaves of all varieties are used in love spells and for prosperity work. The branches are often used to create magickal wands. Magickally used to sweeten things up. Zones 4–8.
Oak (Quercus spp.). The oak is considered the king of trees, and may grow up to 110 feet tall. There are many varieties of oak trees, such as English oak, pin oak, red oak, scarlet oak, and the white oak. Check and see which of these varieties are best suited to your climate.
Zones 3 or 4–9. (The zones will vary according to the variety of the oak.)
Sacred to the Druids and the God, oak wood can be made into a powerful wand, or a small twig may be carried to bring about good fortune. Acorns are charms for fertility, sexual potency, protection from storms, and are amulets for youthfulness and beauty.
Pine (Pinus spp.). The pine may be easily discerned from other evergreens because their needlelike leaves are produced in bundles of two to five needles. They require full sun to grow and look their best. The tree of protection and money, many prosperity spells call for pine. Isn’t that handy? A lot of green candles are pine scented. Pine needles may be burned to cleanse your home of unwanted astral nasties or bad vibrations. Pines may be used in the garden or yard as specimen trees, as a screen, or for a wind break. Also, most types of evergreens make excellent habitats for birds and other local wildlife. Cold hardiness zone requirements will differ from species to species. On average, zones 3–7.
Rowan, or European Mountain Ash (Sorbus aucuparia). This tree is worth growing in your yard, as it has four-season interest: flowers in the spring, green leaves in the summer, and reddish foliage in the fall. It bears small orange-red berries that are prized by birds throughout the late fall and winter months. Zones 3–7.
Traditionally the rowan is thought to be a witch tree. It is a tree of the Goddess and is sacred to the faeries. A rowan growing near a stone circle is considered to be the most powerful. The rowan protects from all sources of evil. Two rowan twigs tied into an equal-armed cross with red thread is a powerful protective amulet. The berries are used in charm bags for power, healing, and protection.