Since I’m on a plant kick today because I’ve decided to give my green thumb a try, I’m creating this master post relating to household plants. This is especially useful for witches like myself who don’t know the first thing about taking care of a plant inside the house besides watering and letting the darn thing get some sun! So, here we go:
Common TOXIC (as in you may not want to get these if you have kids or pets) household plants and their properties:
*Aloe (toxic to pets, not toxic to humans) – wards against evil, protection from intruders and household accidents, brings good luck (also great for burns and good for your skin)
*Lillies, as well as the Peace Lily – love, comfort, harmony
*Ivy – protection, drive away negativity, promote fidelity and fertility
*Poinsetta – purity, celebration of winter holidays
*Fig (aka weeping fig, fig tree, ficus, ficus tree) – divination, fertility, love, prosperity, guards against poverty and hunger if placed in kitchen, aids in restful sleep if placed in bedroom
Common NON-TOXIC household plants and their properties:
*African Violet – love, protection, promotes peace and spirituality
*Lavendar (can be toxic If your pets ingest a lot of it) – love, friendship, calm, protection
*Spider plant – protection, healing, absorb negativity while improving the energy and air quality of your home
*Bamboo –
protection, luck, hex-breaking, wishes, protection, helps with depression
*Orchid – love, power, charisma
*Ferns (some ARE toxic, however the Boston Fern is not) – protection, luck, can aid in summoning rain
*Ti plant (can be toxic If your pets ingest a lot of it) – good luck, can be used to attract money if you place a coin under it
*Succulents (hens and chicks, burro/donkey tail, etc.) – love, abundance
*Palms – spirituality, good vibes, protection from unwanted spirits, ghosts, astral entities
*Cacti (non-toxic, yet can still be painful for kids and pets if they touch the spines) – protection, strengthens will, increases sexual stamina if juices are added to a love potion, guards against intruders if a cactus is placed in the North, East, South and Western points of your home
***I’ve recieved a lot of feedback on this post stating that most of the NON-TOXIC plants I have listed are in fact toxic. I’ve made a few notes and changes, but let me just add that many plants can be toxic to animals if they eat a bunch of it. Vomiting, diarrhea, and depression are side effects that your pet may exhibit if they’ve eaten too much of a plant that can be considered non-toxic or mildly toxic. It’s always best to seek medical attention for your pet if they show these sympstoms, just in case. Otherwise, try to keep your plants out of reach of your pets, please!
Use your best judgement on which plants are best for your household. I’m not an expert, these are just some of the things I have gathered through research. If you’re afraid your pets are gonna eat your plants and get sick, then maybe you should get a different plant that is edible or otherwise in no way a danger to the animal.
You can refer to the ASPCA’s website on toxic and non-toxic plants if you’re unsure, but please keep in mind they do not mention the severity of the toxicity of the plants they list, so you can do a simple google search to find out for yourself, but AGAIN please do not replace any information you find on the internet to actual medical care! Consult with your veterinarian if your pet it sick!
*Moss Agate (aka the Gardener’s Stone) – prosperity, vitality, helps plants thrive and will assist plant growth, wearing moss agate while planting/gardening will increase your green thumb and give you energy, assosciated with nature spirits
*Green Jasper – aids in luxurious growth of your plants
*Green Calcite – healing, can be used to soothe when the environment is too loud, associated with Earth spirits of woods and meadows
*Clear Quartz – aids in growth and vitality, grounding, can also be placed in a vase of freshly cut flowers to help them last longer
*Rose Quartz – especially beneficial for roses as it maintains their bloom longer
*Smokey Quartz – keeps pests away
*Tourmaline – healing
*Amethyst – calms plants that are stressed
*Jet – can be worn to make plants flourish
*Green Fluorite – healing, especially good to use for a plant that has been injured or broken in some way
*Moonstone – fertility, encourages healthy plants and flowers, promotes a soothing, restful area
Perform this exercise with a plant with which you are familiar with, then try it with something you’ve never seen or handled before. Trust your observations
For this exercise, you’ll need the plant, plus your green witch journal & something to write with.
Take the plant in your hand. If it is dried or harvested herb, hold a pinch in your palm or hold your hand over it, palm down. It is a living plant that you correctly identified as safe to touch, gently touch it with your fingers. If you cannot identify it, hold your hand above or to the side of the plant with your palm towards it.
Close your eyes and imagine your palm glowing. Focus on the sensation of your palm.It may tingle or grow warm or cool. That means you’re focusing on the energy your palm is creating naturally.
Visualize the plant glowing
Visualize the glow of energy collected in your palm gently stretching out to touch glowing energy of the plant. As the two energies meet, ask yourself what you sense. Do you feel a specific emotion? Do ideas drift into your head? Thoughts or vague hunches? Pay attention. This is a method for collecting observations about the plant by sensing its energy with your own energy.
When you feel you have observed enough, send the plant a feeling of gratitude for its cooperation, then visualize your energy disengaging from that of that the plant and drawing back into your palm.
Open your eyes and shake your hands firmly, as if you’re shaking water off your hand. This will help you get rid of any excess energy hanging on.
Write down your observations in your green witch journal.
Everyone interact differently with the energy of a plant. If lavender energizes you, then that is one of lavender’s energy benefit in your practice, even though most books will tell you that lavender generally projects feelings of peace and tranquility. Acquiring first-hand knowledge is important for a green witch, as it shapes and refines your practice, personalizing it in a way that makes it truly unique.
Whew, finally back from school! Now that I’m free, it’s time to reassemble one of my best
school essentials for next quarter—tiny, reusable packets of herbs that are
perfect for spells on the go (or spicing up a dull meal…what’s the difference,
really?).
While I love the look of tiny bottles for portable ingredients, they’re
not as space-saving as these repurposed straws. So though my best staples get
bottled for easiest refills, I like to keep the odd ingredient (or extra
backups of the classics) rattling around in my pockets like this! Some things to keep in mind:
Only melt the ends as they’re separated from the herbs by
the pliers/tweezers—food safe plastic or not, you still don’t want that melting
on your ingredients!
Most straws work for this, but thin plastic straws may
warp and bubble further up the tube before the ends seal shut; try a few tests,
and heat with care.
While I always carry around a pen knife, if you don’t,
consider keeping these in a little pocket tin with a razor blade for easy
opening. Cutting the small notch in the end is pretty effective for
fingers-only opening, but may cause leaks in fluid-filled packets and should be
avoided in those cases. Small, neat incisions with a knife also make for easier
sealing for reuse!
EDIT: while I didn’t touch on it too much here, I also use these to prepare ready-made spells. If you’re doing this, consider matching the color of the candle and straw to the spell intent!
Ever seen another person’s herb garden and wanted one exactly like it? Want to buy loads of lovely herbs but don’t have the money? Or want to start a plant business don’t know where to start?
Well my friend, I have two words for you. Plant cloning. It’s natural, free and very easy to do.
This method works best for herbs such as
Basil
Broadleaf Thyme/Cuban Oregano
Mint
Oregano
Basically, what it does is allow you to take a cutting from one plant, and grow an entirely separate plant from it. This means that you could have an endless supply of herbs – you can take 20 cuttings from a single plant, and when they’ve all grown you’ll be able to take another 20 cutting from each of those plants!
So how do you do it? Well it’s deceptively simple. Here’s how:
1. Start with your parent plant. Due to my recent obsession with basil, that’s the herb I’ve decided to go for.
2. Take a cutting – about 4-5 inches long. Make sure you do it just below a node (the place where the leaves join the stem, just like above in the picture)
3. If possible, try and cut the stem diagonally. This gives it a greater surface area to suck up water with.
4. OK, so this is pretty much what your cutting should look like. Make sure you’ve removed at least the bottom pair of leaves, but it’s good to remove a few sets as the plant can then concentrate on growing roots.
5. Place the cutting in some water so that the stem is comletley submerged. I found old plastic shot glasses worked great for this, but you can also use pretty bottles or cups or whatever.
6. Make sure you’ve picked the bottom leaves off, and that the nodes are in the water. This is because the new roots are going to grow out of these nodes, so obviously they’re going to need to be in the water.
7. Put them in a sunny place where you can keep an eye on them. Above is a picture of the babies with their mummy! After about a week, roots should have grown out of the nodes.
8. That’s it, you’re done! Once the roots are well developed, you can plant your herbs in to pots. Keep the soil moist and the herb in a sunny place, and soon it’ll be as big as the parent plant.
You can use this method to get free herbs – instead of buying them all, why not just take cuttings from a friend or family member’s herbs and use them for your own garden? (with their permission of course)
Or, take a lot of cuttings like I’ve done, pot them up and sell them for a profit!
1. DIY Elderberry Thyme syrup – elderberry has been used for centuries in healing because it provides immune support (and has long been thought to banish negative energy). Can be taken both preventatively and to shorten the course of a cold.
2. DIY Cough Drops – these cute cough drops are made with tea and honey to sooth an irritated throat. The original blogger chose hibiscus tea for the taste, but consider using one of the herbal teas she lists at the bottom for a more healing herbal remedy.
3. Lemon, Honey, and Ginger in a Jar – a traditional and internet favorite, this mixture turns into a jelly for when your throat needs serious soothing. Honey has been used for millennia to heal a variety ailments, just be sure to keep this away from infants.
4. 30 Herbs for Cold and Flu Season – for those that like to have options, here is a long list of healing herbs with suggestions on how to use them during cold and flu season.
Ok so I am gonna say this is my personal reference, its mainly through associations. You might TOTALLY disagree and thats chill!
Its more something to think about and a guideline of what I use myself…
Candle Magic:
Carve a candle when…. the candle represents the target, in sympathetic magic. When, essentially, the candle is a poppet and lighting it is a symbol of destruction or empowerment to the target.
Place something under the candle or before it when… you are doing general candle magic, when the candle represents empowering a wish, idea or concept.
Anoint the candle when… doing work with spirits and gods, when you mark the candle for a special purpose, when doing high magic.
Herbs and plant work:
Use dry herbs when… it is convienent to do so, when the herbs are out of season or when you need to store them in a jar or bottle for a long time.
Use fresh herbs when… the spell is very earth orientated, when doing magic on behalf of another or when the magic is sympathetic so that the herbs represent the target, within kitchen witchery.
Use flowers when… when the spell concerns love and sex, or perhaps fertility and attraction, due to flowers being the reproductive parts of the plant.
Use fruit when when… working with children as a target, or with children practising. When you work with fertility and abundance spells.
Use wood and twigs when… when the spell is for protection or binding, for hardiness.
Burn herbs (recaning/incense) when… you wish to cleanse or banish, or invoke an atmosphere – that being, for divination using herbs that are said to open up your perceptions, when banishing, burning acrid or pungent herbs.
Use oil infusions when… you wish to anoint something, when you wish to mark something permanently.
Use floral waters (rose water etc) when… dealing with spirits and gods, for glamour as it has a long history of being used to beautify.
Crystals:
Use metals (haematite, copper, ores etc..) when… you work in protection, when you do energy work due to the conductive properties of metal.
Use shell, pearl, coral and such when… you work in sea magic, when you work within emotional magic due to the element of water.
Use points when… you wish to direct magic to a target.
Use tumble stones when… you wish the magic to be gentle or manifest at a certain place on the body on a target.
Use geodes when… you work in protection, when you work with glamour aimed to obscure and hide.
Knot magic:
Use cotton when… it is convenient.
Use silk when… doing spells that benefit the target.
Use ribbons when… love spells and wealth spells, as well as confidence and beauty spells. Spells to ensure victory.
Use rope when… doing spells that aim to hurt or weaken the target, binding especially.
Poppets:
Use cloth when… the spell aims to benefit who the poppet represents, use particular care when sewing or cutting, choose colours that are appropriate to them.
Use wax when… you wish to manipulate the target.
Use clay when… wish to create fetches or servitors, when you wish to create permanency.
Use twigs when… you wish to bury or throw the poppet out, when you want the poppet to be easily destroyed by breaking or setting on fire.
Sigils:
Use an alphabet grid or circle when… you wish the sigil to be more random and less attached to you.
Combine the shapes of letters from a sentence… when your sigil is very specific and a short term goal.
Use your own personal symbols when… you want the magic to be connected to you, when it is personal.
teakepp 