The superstitions revolving around teas and their rituals, along with certain aspects of cake are at times forgotten.

Tea

The supernatural use of tea:

Protection - dry tea leaves were sometimes scattered on the front-door step of a new home to protect it from evil spirits.

Tea can be used to predict strangers - If a single stalk floats on top of a cup of tea, it means that a stranger is coming - a hard, woody stalk indicates a male visitor and a soft stalk, a female. The length of the stalk tells you whether he or she will be tall or short. To find out when they will come, lay the stalk on the back of the left hand and hit it with the right. However many hits it takes to knock it off tells the number of days before they will stand at your door.

Fortune telling with tea leaves - To tell fortunes from tea cups, the tea must be brewed with loose leaf tea and poured into the cup without using a tea strainer. The person whose future is to be divined must turn his or her cup three times in an anticlockwise direction. To do this the cup should be held in the left hand and turned by the handle. Then it is tipped upside down to drain off the last few drops of tea. It is a bad sign if there are a lot of leaves left in the bottom of the cup. But it is a good sign if the leaves are scattered evenly over the bottom and sides. The fortune teller then analyses the pictures and images that are visible in the leaves in order to foretell the tea drinker’s fate. If the leaves are deposited in the bottom foretell the distant future. The sides of the cup represent the not-too-distant future, and leaves that lie near the rim predict imminent events.

Common tea herbs & their properties:

Chamomile - It is connected to the element of water. It helps cleanse the throat chakra. It promotes calm and tranquil energies, as well as a peaceful sleep.

Vanilla - It is connected to the element of fire. It is used for confidence, love, and prosperity. 

Thyme - It is connected to the element of air. It is thought to help evoke the ability of clairvoyance, as well as psychic development.

Tea superstitions:

It is a bad omen if boiling water was poured into an empty pot - that is, if the tea-maker forgot to put in any tea-leaves.

If the tea was weaker than intended, a friend will turn away from you; but if it came out too strong, a new friendship was on the horizon.

It is unlucky to stir the pot prior to pouring - it will result in a quarrel. It is also ominous to stir tea with anything other than a spoon.

To spill a little tea while making it is a lucky omen.

To put milk in your tea before sugar is to cross the path of love, perhaps never to marry.

Tea spilling from the spout of the teapot while being carried indicates a secret will be revealed.

Undissolved sugar in the bottom of your teacup means that there is someone sweet on you.

If the tag falls off the teabag while it’s in your cup, you will lose something within a week.

Cake

Birthday cakes:

The Ancient Greeks were the first to write Happy Birthday on a cake in edible writing - relating to the worship of the moon goddess ‘Artemis.’ Her birthday was celebrated by eating moon-shaped honey cakes with candles on the top. It was said that bad spirits were attracted to celebrations so it was very important to wish a person a ‘happy birthday,’ blow out the candles and read any wishes inscribed on the cake as a kind of magical protection.

Many believe that candles blown in order to make a wish are only fulfilled if they areblown in one breath. It is said by some, that the smoke from blown out candles carries their wishes to the Heavens.

Wedding cakes:

The tradition of a wedding cake comes from ancient Rome, where revelers broke a loaf of bread over a bride’s head to increase the chances of fertility.

Legend says single women will dream of their future husbands if they sleep with a slice of groom’s cake under their pillows.

Eating the crumbs of a wedding cake will bring you good luck.

In the 18th century, newlywed couples would try to keep the cake until their first anniversary to prevent them from marriage problems in the future. This is one of the reasons why cakes in the 18th century were made of fruits and blended with wine.

Christmas cakes:

People tend to save a piece of Christmas cake for New Year because not doing so is said to bring bad luck in the subsequent year.

Cutting a Christmas cakes before Christmas Eve is said to cause bad luck.

The dumb-cake was made at midnight on Christmas Eve is prepared in complete silence by the bachelors and spinsters. One who made it left their initials on the upper surface of the cake. If the silence remained unbroken, the future partner was believed to come and leave their initials on the cake. If one walked backwards to bed after eating dumb-cake, a dream about a future spouse was sure to visit them.

Other cake superstitions:

A Victorian superstition states that placing a piece of fruit cake under one’s pillow will cause a dream of their future spouse.

If food is being served at tea-time, the person to take the last piece of cake from the plate will be the first to get married.

Tipping over a slice of cake while serving a guest is said to bring bad luck.

My experience as a landscaper has mostly been in fixing or maintaining the bad ideas of other people. With that in mind, I’d like to share some advice on how to garden wisely.

Aggressive plants are high maintenance, avoid them. For many years the industry has touted aggressive plants as groundcovers because they’re very easy for them to mass-produce and they grow impressively for customers. However, aggressive plants ALWAYS breech containment. The effort of ripping out or just monthly hacking back aggressive vines which attack your house is much greater than the annoyance of having to wait for slower growers to establish.

Carefully research every plant you purchase. Research is treated like a chore in the plant community and many people celebrate their impulsiveness when it comes to purchasing plants. This is a mistake. The $2 plant you plop in the ground and forget about could eventually take over your yard. Knowing exactly what you’re buying, where it’s from and how it grows will help you know if it’s the right choice for you. Plus, getting to know a plant and learn what makes it interesting and beautiful will give you a better appreciation for it once the novelty wears off.

Only plan as much garden maintenance for yourself as you would like to do on the hottest day of the year. It’s inevitable that we pay more attention to our gardens when it’s a pleasant day outside but the weeds don’t mind the heat. By all means spend more time outside in the spring and fall, get big projects done but keep in mind that they must be maintained and that you will often not feel like spending your weekend toiling away at an overgrown bed in July. This one is tough because it takes a little experience to get a feeling for how much work you can get done in a day. I know for myself and my schedule, I will not weed my beds every week. I plant things that can hold their own against weeds without becoming weeds themselves. These are almost always native plants.

Shrubs and trees should be planted so that when they are fully grown they do not touch any part of your house. Branches rubbing against your house damage your siding, retain too much moisture, and make maintenance to your house difficult. Similarly, plants should never overhang pathways in a way that would interfere with their use. Always leave ample headroom and plenty of clearance on either side of paths, keeping in mind that branches will bend and droop with rain or snow.

Take the time to study your landscape as it exists now before changing it. Learn the names of the plants which are already planted, try to figure out why they were planted there and if it’s a good place for them. Learn where the sun strikes your yard at different times of the day, a patch that looks like full sun at noon may be in deep shade for the morning and afternoon. Which way do the prevailing winds blow in the different seasons? Some plants which bloom in the very early spring will be better suited to a location where they’re kept out of the winter wind but have good ventilation in summer. Is the soil clay, sandy, loamy, silty, or rocky? Are there low areas where water pools after a rain or dry areas where the turf always goes brown in summer. Find the most comfortable and frequently-used areas of your house and yard, what can you see in the garden from them and what would you like to see?

Make plans, budgets, sketches, and notes about what you do in the garden. Find a system of documentation that works for you, whether it’s as simple as saving plant tags or as complicated as drawing up designs, you should know what plants you have where and why. Ideally your system should have the common name, scientific name, a brief description, the reasoning behind its location, and when it was planted. For example: “Rosemallow, Hibiscus moscheutos; trident-shaped leaves with undertones that match the color of the blossom, large, blousy, open flowers in white-red range with a dark iridescent eye, shoots don’t emerge until June, flowers appear in mid-July and continue til frost; planted in 2015 at the bottom of the hill where the water pools on the southeast corner of the house near the back door because they like wet feet and the bare canes are hidden by clematis and agastache early in the season before foliage emerges.”

The cheapest way to buy plants is to buy seed, the cheapest way to get plants is by making friends. There are some beloved garden plants which are very difficult to grow from seed but many are not. Know the difference between them. Growing from seed is not always slower and frequently results in healthier growth long-term. Even better than buying seed is to get free plants from or swap plants with a friend. There are tons of plants which thrive through division, many plants make viable seed which can be shared, tubers and cuttings are simple to take and easy to transport. Get to know your neighbors who garden, offer them something from your yard or propose a swap. Many people are happy to share or trade plants. Be sure to ask them as much as you can about the plants they give and their care. The advice you get may be more valuable than any of the plants you get. Speaking of which…