Healing medicinal plants can easily be grown in containers on your porch or patio. You’ll have a healing medicinal garden right at your fingertips! You can cut and dry the plants for future use for making medicinal teas and for culinary uses.
Growing plants in containers prolong the growing season. Why? Because it allows for portability. A plant can be moved indoors when the temperatures dip below the plant’s cold tolerance. People in wheelchairs or who have mobility issues can easily access larger containers.
What Types Of Containers?
Containers can be any size such as old bathtubs, sinks and toilets are great containers because. Why? They provide a range of growing areas. Other containers are glazed ceramic containers of various sizes from medium to large.
Clay pots aren’t as good because they wick away moisture quickly. They need to be watered more frequently than pots made from other materials. These pots also crack and break with the expansion and contraction of freezing soil. These need to be emptied and protected from moisture during the winter in temperate climates.
Medicinal Plants For Your Container Garden
Gotu kola (Centella asiatica) is a small perennial herbaceous plant that likes to grow in very damp containers. Gotu kola helps cleanse the blood and treat skin impurities. It improves the nervous, digestive and circulatory systems. Ultimately this herb rebuilds energy reserves. This plant is effective in treating rheumatism, blood diseases, and congestive heart failure. Gotu relieves high blood pressure, urinary tract infections, venereal diseases, and hepatitis.
You can drink tea made with dried gotu kola 3 times a day or take as a tincture in a glass of water.
Women who are trying to get pregnant should never take this herb.
Spilanthes (Acmella oleracea) is most known for treating toothache and oral issues. Aside from toothaches, it treats gum disease and throat infections and it is very beneficial as an oral antiseptic.
Chew fresh spilanthes flowers for the treatment of toothache. It is eaten with other leafy greens or added to cooking. Consume dried flowers as a tea or add extracts in water to get its full therapeutic effect.
Spilanthes have antibacterial and antifungal properties making it a good purifying herb. Use this herb for disinfecting wounds and curing ringworm infections.
Aloe (Aloe vera) is best known for treating skin injuries. Each leaf is full of a slimy tissue that stores water. This slimy, water-filled tissue is the “gel” we associate with aloe vera products.
The gel contains most of the bioactive compounds in the plant, including vitamins, minerals, amino acids, and antioxidants.
Applying aloe vera to burns accelerates the healing process, and the gel also heals canker sores. Aloe juice used as a mouth rinse reduces the build-up of plaque on teeth.
Aloe vera juice contains a huge amount of vitamins, it’s also rich in choline and folic acid, all of which help the skin regenerate and stay healthy.
Lavender (Lavandula spp.) tea benefits include supporting tired muscles, treating insomnia, indigestion, acne, and headaches. Lavender also maintains cardiovascular health, fights inflammation and improves respiratory health.
Consuming lavender tea after a long, tiring day helps ease muscle soreness. Drinking freshly brewed lavender tea acts as an antiseptic and destroys bacteria that may hurt your health.
Lavender tea helps maintain your digestive system. It contains antispasmodic properties and helps alleviate bowel cramps and symptoms of nausea.
Tulsi (Ocimum tenuiflorum) also called holy basil is an excellent antibiotic, germicidal, fungicidal and disinfectant plant. It protects our body from all sorts of bacterial, viral and fungal infections. Tulsi soothes the nerves, lowers blood pressure, reduces inflammation and reduces stress.
It is very effective in curing almost all respiratory disorders including bronchitis.
Tulsi is very beneficial in treating asthma since it relieves congestion and facilitates smoother breathing. The phytonutrients and essential oils, along with other minerals in it, help cure some of the underlying causes of asthma as well.
It is an excellent mouth freshener and an oral disinfectant. Holy basil destroys more than 99% of germs and bacteria in the mouth and this effect may last all day. It also aids in providing relief from mouth ulcers. Use tulsi tea that has cooled, and swish around in your mouth.
Drink as a tea 3x a day to reap the many health benefits.
More Medicinal Plants
White sage (Salvia apiana) tea relieves the mucous secretions of the sinuses, lungs, and throat that accompany colds. Sinusitis occurs when your sinuses become inflamed due to a bacterial, viral or fungal infection. If you suffer from frequent sinus infections, consuming white sage tea may cure or prevent such infections from recurring.
A cold cup of white sage tea relieves indigestion. The mild diuretic effects make it is useful for mild hypertension.
White sage tea provides relief from menstrual cramps. It alleviates the symptoms of menopause like sweating, hot flashes, and estrogen imbalances. The tea contains phytoestrogens, which mimic estrogen’s effects on the human body.
Apply the cooled tea to wounds and rashes to speed up healing. Since it also contains tannic acid, white sage tea treats athlete’s foot and prevents it from recurring. If you continually suffer from excessive sweating, drinking white sage tea may help treat this condition.
Calendula (Calendula officinalis) oil treats minor abrasions, insect bites, bee stings, cuts, varicose veins, and infections. This oil speeds the healing process, it has anti-inflammatory and antibacterial properties. The oil is made by infusing leaves and flowers in olive oil for 6 weeks, then straining out the plant matter.
Drinking calendula tea aids in digestion, treating upset stomach, bladder infections, and ulcers. It also detoxifies the organs. Use the tea as a gargle for sore throat and as a mouth rinse to relieve blisters and inflamed gums.
A salve made from the oil is very useful for treating skin abrasions and cuts.
Basil (Ocimum basilicum) tea stimulates oral health, detoxifies the body and relieves stress. Other benefits include promoting immune health, preventing cancer development, reducing inflammation, antibacterial properties, helps fight depression, promotes cardiovascular health and promotes liver function.
Basil is an adaptogen, which helps the body deal with stress helping you relax. The tea helps alkalize your body helping prevent acid reflux disease and making it more difficult for bacteria to flourish.
Drinking basil tea has a beneficial effect on digestion, immunity, and probiotic gut cultures.
Thyme (Thymus vulgaris) tea helps lower blood pressure, clear up respiratory infections, soothe a hacky cough, and lower anxiety.
Drink thyme tea 2-3 times a day to boost your immunity, clear a cough, lower blood pressure or get rid of the cold faster. Gargling with thyme tea helps get rid of a sore throat caused by a strep infection.
The antibacterial, antispasmodic and healing properties of thyme mean that it is an effective remedy for bronchial infections. Consume 3 or 4 cups of soothing warm thyme tea daily to help treat symptoms of bronchitis.
As you can see, even on a patio or deck, you can have healing medicinal plants in container gardening. There is your herbal medicine chest ready to make into soothing healing teas, salves or ointments. This list of medicinal plants is just a small number of different healing plants for you to try.