How to Grow a Salve Garden

Are you interested in using herbs in simple home remedies for topical use such as skin care? If you are, then a salve garden is a must to supply these herbs. It makes for an easy and inexpensive way to source the healing plants you need to create these remedies. Plants that can be used in salves for topical support contain many medicinal properties that can be used to soothe, calm and help heal the skin. Learn to grow a salve garden full of plants with herbal and medicinal properties in one place for ease of care and harvesting.

What is a Salve?

A salve is a healing balm that is made using a few ingredients. The benefit of making your own herbal salves, is that you control the ingredients. Salves can also be created easily, with a few ingredients for when you need to top up your medicinal cabinet.

Many salves incorporate an oil infused with healing herbs mixed with beeswax – or candelilla wax for an vegan salve. Essential oils and vitamin E can be added to these salves as well.

Flowers, leaves and roots of most plants should be harvested at the right time for optimal performance. Then they are dried and steeped in oil to create herb infused oils which can be used as it or in homemade salves.

Salves can be created using just one herb or plant. For extra benefits combining a couple of plants together will create one powerful healing salve.

Growing a Salve Garden

Depending on the salves you want to create, the herbs that you grow in your garden will vary. Your garden may be as simple as a couple of plants or as complex as you wish.

One wonderful thing is that many healing plants smell amazing and have stunning foliage and flowers. They will attract beneficial insects to your garden while providing with flowers that can also be cut and used to decorate your home.

Easy Plants to Grow

Here are some easy plants to grow in your salve garden, with many of them reseeding, making them a great addition to your herbal salve garden.

Calendula

Calendula officinalis is a versatile plant is one that should be grown in all gardens.

Not only do the petals make a great addition to salads, and make a lovely natural yellow dye, but this plant has great healing properties making it useful for minor cuts, scrapes and other skin irritations.

Comfrey

Comfrey, or Symphytum officinale, has so many uses making it an invaluable plant that should also be in every garden. It is a wonderful source of nectar for pollinators when in bloom and can be used as an amazing mulch and ‘tea’ for your plants. It also has anti-inflammatory properties that can be used in healing many minor wounds, bruises, sprains and other internal tissue damage.

Just a word of caution. It is not advised to use comfrey salve on deep, open wounds and wounds that need stitches. It is so powerful that it can stimulate healing on the outside, and in doing so, trap bacteria and other microorganisms inside which can lead to abscesses and/or infections.

Arnica

Arnica montana is a perennial that produces gorgeous yellow flowers that are used in salves. Apply this arnica salve to unbroken skin to soothe muscle pain, sprains, swelling and bruises. Do not use on broken skin!

Arnica grows well in drained, rich soil in a full to part shade position.

Chickweed

A common weed, Stellaris media grows masses of green leaves with star-like white flowers. With its amazing medicinal properties, a salve made using this herb can be used to treat itchy and inflamed skin that has been caused by rashes, stings, eczema and psoriasis.

Chamomile

You may have heard of German chamomile and Roman chamomile. For making herbal remedies, German chamomile, or Chamomilla recutita syn. is the best. This annual herb has lovely flowers that are also used to infuse water and tea.

These flowers are also infused in oil to use in salves. With similar soothing properties as calendula, chamomile salve can be abused in treating eczema, rashes, and itches.

Lemon Balm

Melissa officinalis is a herb from the mint family. The leaves from this plant are used in salves to treat viral infections such as shingles and cold sores.

Like its mint family relatives, this plant can take over a garden, so it is best to keep it in a large pot.

Rosemary

Not only great for enjoying with you lamb roasts, rosemary has anti-inflammatory, antiseptic and pain-relieving properties. Rosemary salve can help reduce pain and muscle soreness, redness and swelling, headaches, sprains, and even rheumatism. It can also help improve dry, chapped skin.

Yarrow

Yarrow, Achillea millefolium, is a perennial herb that can be used in a salve to help treat minor topical injuries such as cuts, scrapes, burns, itchy bug bites, stings and rashes. It has also been used to help decrease the symptoms associated with colds, the flu, arthritis and hypertension. Combine with equal amounts of peppermint and elderflower to make a traditional tea and sip to ease cold and flu symptoms.

When the leaves and flowers are infused in oil and then in salves, they are used as an antiseptic, helping to stop bleeding and to help promote the healing process. The leaves can also be scattered through the compost bin to help break down the compost.

Plantain

The two types of plantain that are used in skincare are common plantain, Plantago major, and ribwort plantain, Plantago lanceolata.

These low-lying perennial plants form a rosette of leaves which have many of the same healing qualities of comfrey and calendula.

These plants can be used in salves, ointments and more to stimulate the healing of minor cuts, abrasions and bruises. They are also know for helping with hemorrhoids.

St. Johns Wort

Flowers from the St. Johns Wort, Hypericum perforatum, are infused in oil and used to make healing salves that can be used on wounds, burns and for joint pain.

This perennial plant loves a sunny place, with well-drained soil. Growing up to 90cm in height, it does have a spreading habit. The flowering stems grow from the crown in spring, dying off in the fall after setting seed.

Cayenne Peppers

This may seem like an odd plant to grow in a salve garden, and you may already have it growing in your vegetable garden, even so Capsicum frutescens, is a great medicinal plant to have.

When used in salves, cayenne works well as a muscle rub or to help relieve rheumatic and arthritic joints as it works to increase blood flow to the area.

Other Herbs to Include in your Garden

Here is a list of other herbs that you may like to include in your salve garden.

Echinacea
Anise Hyssop
Goldenrod
Elderflower
Lavender
Mullein
Roses
Marshmallow Root
Pansies
Violas / Violets

Salves To Make

To make many salves, you will need to make an infused oil first. If you use the slow method of infusing, this can take a few weeks. The faster method can be completed in a few hours. For more information on how to make a herb infused oil, read more here.

Here is a list of salves that I love to use in homemade salves.

Planting a salve garden is a wonderful way to have a supply of herbs that can be used medicinally in salves as well as cut flowers and to bring beneficial insects into your garden.

How to Grow a Salve Garden

What is a Salve?

Growing a Salve Garden