Anya's Garden Perfumes + The Natural Perfumery Institute

  Is This the Longest Comfrey Root, or What? by  Anya McCoy  |  Jul 18, 2014  |  Anya's Garden Perfumes ,  Herbalism  |  3 comments I planted a tiny root cutting of comfrey (Symphytum officinale) in 1994, in a prime spot in my front garden. I love this plant so much. I first read about it in Jeanne Rose’s  Herbs and Things  book twenty years before. Comfrey has recently been a conversational subject that has connected me with the South Florida herbal community, with a foodie/herbal friend who is writing a book on culinary and healing herbs, and today, maybe a fun fact. Is the root that my apprentice Paula Diaz harvested for me the longest darn comfrey root ever?! Click the image below, if needed, for viewing details. One site says that the roots can go down ten feet, another says lateral roots can grow to three feet. Confirmed? Or just info copied from books and repeated. Does anyone have any proof with photos? I spent a lot of time...

 Originally posted May 12, 2013 Happy Mother’s Day, everyone!  I offer that greeting to all females, because we are blessed with the mothering ‘gene’ from the earliest age, so I honor every female on this day.  Today I’m going a little off-topic, and honoring a plant that I regard as the most mothering, comforting, healing plant: comfrey, aka Symphytum officinale in the botanical world.  Please feel free to ask your perfumery questions, that’s the purpose of this forum, and I’d love you to take you on a little side trip to my other love, herbalism (and aromatherapy, too). Click to enlarge: A comfrey salve recipe from  http://valwebb.wordpress.com/2007/09/09/garden-journal-comfrey/  I started to reconnect with comfrey and my decades of herbal study a few weeks ago when I attended a comfrey salve workshop at the local urban farm Earth N Us given by Julia Onnie-Hay of Bless Botanicals.  I went home with a jar of salve we made that day, and it came in hand...

With some chat going on following my blog yesterday quoting article showing the problems with government regulation in microbusinesses, especially businesses that produce items for our body, whether they be perfume, food, herbal medicine and the like, this great article Everything I Do is Illegal was sent to a busy herb list I'm on. He's a food producer - meat products, to be exact - and he's an intelligent voice calling for some common sense. Our country has turned into a corporate- and industrial- business machine, and the small businesses are being regulated out of business. Regarding the post yesterday, the most chat is going on in the herb list. Herbalists are traditionally plant gatherers and processors. They're also traditionally a bit apart from mainstream society, aside from those who have grown their businesses into huge corporations, such as the ones mentioned in the Cruel Stepmother and Good Father Who Will Not See article. Many of us are familiar with them...