Pretty and Magical ✨

Already starting to plan this years garden so I thought I should do a post on Witch Gardens

Moonlight Garden

A garden that blooms in the moonlight, a great place to perform night time rituals, meditations, or to just take a midnight stroll. A garden that is full of magick even after the sun sets. 

Plants to add in your moonlight garden:

Moonflower: (Ipomoea alba) A nocturnal relative of the morning glory. Has fragrant flowers that open at dusk and close by dawn.    

Evening Primrose: (Oenothera biennis) Has beautiful, scented flowers that bloom only at dusk. 

Night Flox: (Zaluzianskya capensis) A sweetly fragranced flower that only unfurls its pinwheeled shaped flowers after dusk. 

Four O’Clock: (Mirabilis jalapa) Its scented flowers bloom at around 4:00pm (hence its name) and do not close up until morning. 

Queen of the Night: (Epiphyllum oxypetalum) A species of cactus whose flowers only open at night. Attracts moths and bats!!!

Night Blooming Jessamine: (Cestrum nocturnum) Strong, sweet scented star shaped flowers that only bloom at night. Attracts moths and bats!!! All parts are toxic, do not ingest!

Angel’s Trumpet: (Brugmansia) Produces a strong scent on warm summer evenings. All parts are toxic, do not ingest!

Evening Stock: (Matthiola longipetala) Produces lots of small blossoms that produce a perfume described as a mix of vanilla, rose, spice, and cloves only after the sun sets.

Ever-Flowering Gladiolus: (Gladiolus tristis) Release a strong almond fragrance after dusk.  

Lilac: (Syringa vulgaris) Although has a perfume during the day, it is said to be a lot stronger after dark. 

Flowering Tobacco: (Nicotiana) Open in the late afternoon and have a fragrance that smells of jasmine. All parts are toxic if ingested!

Summer Snapdragon: (Angelonia angustifolia) Preferably in white, to reflect the moonlight. Has a scent apple-scented foliage. 

Silvermound: (Artemisia schmidtiana) Has thick foliage that will shimmer under the moonlight.

Jack Frost: (Brunnera macrophylla) Hdeart shaped leaves of silver and green, perfect to add more highlights of silver to your moon lit garden. 

Any plant that blooms after dark or has white, lavender, pale pink, pale yellow on it is a perfect addition to your moonlight garden. 

Things to add:

Stepping stones that have the phases of the moon.

Fairy lights

A place to sit

Candles

A small fountain to sing along with the insects and birds of the night

String charms and bells on tree branches for a soft jingling every time a gentle breeze passes. 

Herb Garden

For witches who need a more practical garden for uses of healing, tea crafting, drying, and growing plants used in their practices.

Plants to add to your herb garden:

Anise: Helps to ward of the evil eye, find happiness, and stimulates psychic abilities. 

Basil: Use for anything pertaining with love, exorcism, wealth, sympathy, and protection. Dispels confusion, fears & weakness. Drives off hostile spirits.

Bergamont: Corresponds with money and prosperity. Provides with protection from evil and illness, improves memory, stops interference, and promotes restful sleep.

Borage: Corresponds with courage and psychic powers. 

Cat Nip: Is sacred to the Goddess Bast. Brings forth beauty, happiness, good luck, and good spirits.

Chamomile: Corresponds with love, healing, and sleep. Is known to reduce stress.

Chervil: Brings a sense of the higher self, placing you in touch with your divine, immortal spirit.

Coriander: Corresponds with love, health, immortality, and protection.

Dill: Corresponds with money, protection, luck and lust. 

Lemon Balm: Corresponds with love, success, healing, and psychic/spiritual development. 

Marjoram: Used to cleanse, purify, and to dispel negative energy.  

Mint: Promotes energy, communication and vitality.

Oregano: Corresponds with joy, strength, vitality, and added energy 

Parsley: Calms and protects the home.

Rosemary: Protects, cleanses, purifies, and aids memory. 

Sage: Used for self purification and dealing with grief and loss.

Thyme: Attracts loyalty, affection, and the good opinion of others.

Things to add:

A place to dry herbs

A place to compost any herb scraps

Rocks

A place to leave offerings before you harvest

Bee Garden

Make yourself a sanctuary to watch bees frolic and thrive

Plants to add to your bee garden:

Bee balm

Lavender

Crocus

Snow Drop

Wildflowers/Any native species

Catmint

Borage

Anise hyssop

Heliotrope

Sunflower

Oregano

Yarrow

Coneflower

Black eyed susan

Asters

Goldenrod

Foxglove

Marigold

Pansies

Sweet peas

Nasturtiums

Things to add:

Bee houses

Bee waterers/bee baths

Bee feeders

A place for offerings to the bees

Some other ideas for your garden:

Hummingbird garden

Medicinal garden

A garden whose plants and decorations represent/correspond with your practice.

Butterfly Garden

Faerie Garden 

The options are endless! I hope this gives you some ideas for this years garden.

Happy planting!

In my magical garden I have planted many seeds this year and have a few sprouts! Out of the long list of things I planted, Echinacea, Burdock, Daisies, and Sunflowers were the first to sprout some leaves, so I will be writing out their historic uses and how they are used in magic in this post and will do so each time I get a new sprout. Stay tuned to read similar things for plants like Mugwort, Wormwood, Valerian, Rosemary, etc. 

Echinacea

This plant is native to Central and the East/South parts of North America. It used to be called purple coneflower, and in some places it still is called as such, the word Echinacea is the Latin word for this plant. 

This plant wasn’t historically used specifically in any type of magic or for magical purposes. Since it’s native to these parts of North America, it was first used by Native American’s who lived in this plants native growth regions. For over 400 years, Native Americans used this plant for so many things until colonizers began to use it as well, eventually making this plant very popular around the 18th century. Even today, Echinacea is found and used in an extreme variety of holistic medicines. 

Since the Native American use of this plant is not widely talked about and I can’t find many reputable sources for information, I am just going to link some possibly “okay” websites and let everyone decide. What I can say for sure about this plant is that it was used for a wide variety of wounds, scrapes, burns, etc. on both humans and animals. It was more of a medicinal plant rather than a magical one. 

What I plan to use it for is tea. It’s a strengthening and healing plant all around, so I will be using this plant as a physical/body boosting property. 

Keywords: Physical body strengthening, general health, immune system. 

Possibly Okay Sources: Brief mention of its history - A pretty juicy journal - Another one 

Burdock

I think this is Burdock… I kind of planted a bunch of seeds and didn’t label them. I guess we’ll find out once it’s true leaves start showing up!

Burdock is native to Europe. Velcro was modeled after this plant due to it’s extremely sticky nature (it will literally stick to your clothes and it’s so hard to get off, it’s not sticky like syrup, more like Velcro). People really liked this plant since birds would get stuck in it, giving the human an extra meal. (don’t worry I am not using it to kill birds, this plant will have a net around it so that does not happen.)

This is a cleansing herb regardless. Some will say it’s used for protection and they would be wrong. This guy is “get rid of it now” herb commonly used after you find out you have a curse/hex/bad energy/whatever you call it placed on you. 

After finding out you have some bad energy on you, you do something to release that curse off of you, bathe in specific hex breaking herbs (not Burdock), check if you’ve still got that bad energy on you the next day, then you will boil Burdock and other cleansing herbs in a large pot, keep those herbs in the boiling water and pour it into your bath, then you will do a thing with a candle, light it, and bathe in that bath until the entire candle goes out. Don’t leave the bath until the candle has gone out, and then air dry, no towel. ((I got this information from an older, very experienced, traditional practitioner)).

How to use: The root is mainly the part to use and it takes two years to fully grow. You can use the leaves, don’t use the sticky parts. I prefer the roots so I will grow this plant for two years, harvest the roots, cut the roots how I want them right after I pull them up (if you don’t they harden harder than bone), and I will preserve them in an air-tight water filled jar in case I need to use them. 

Daisies

Daisies grow native all over the world, but the specific type of Daisy I am growing is native to Europe and Asia. 

These Daisies (the most common ones seen in America, white petals with a yellow core) are Sun plants - metaphysically speaking, not garden speaking. Meaning that they are flowers of the Sun, so they have Sun properties. 

The word Daisy comes from Old English, “Daes eage,” which means, “Day’s Eye”, which I correlate to “Sun’s Eye,” the eye of the Sun or anything relating to the Sun. They were called Day’s Eye in some places since they were believed to have eye health properties - so perhaps they could magically be used for eye health or strengthening (third eye too).

Many times through history or in folklore, Daisies are used to denote the innocence of childhood, or children in general. So, playfulness, energy, innocence, curiosity… those all fall under this plant. 

Daisies are the traditional “he loves me, he loves me not,” plant used as a divination to see whether somebody liked you back. So I associate this plant with being used to sort of “test the waters” of a relationship in ways such as seeing if somebody likes you, taking it with you on the first few dates to keep boundaries up and make sure the date is being their true self, etc. 

They are a popular plant to use for the Spring and Summer equinox, although I don’t think they were traditionally used for those times (I am not 100% sure so don’t take my word for it).

I will be using my daisies as a mood booster. I will probably make some type of mood boosting oil or bath mix out of them for this use. If I have extra, I will dry some out when harvest time comes and hang them around the house to keep the good vibes up. 

Keywords: Innocence, happiness, energy, creativity, humility, testing the waters of love

Catnip

((It’s there, the gif is just super blurry)) Catnip is native to Europe, Asia, and Africa. 

Catnip was originally used as a herbal medicine for humans. It can be used in lotions, oils, tea, etc. to calm human pain and insomnia. It can ease all kinds of pain, prolong sleep, ward away nightmares, and calm the mind in general. 

Obviously it’s very popular in cat magic, cat worship, or anything to do with cats. It’s said that giving catnip to your cat strengthens the bond, and giving it to any other cat also strengthens the bond you have with that cat but may also draw protection given by cat’s (who are insanely psychic and sense things). 

A story I have with giving catnip to random cats goes like this: I feed the neighborhood cats… I’m THAT lady. One night I was having some intense spirit activity in my house and the energy felt very angry and very “off”. I left the house for a while and some more super weird things happened, and when I got home there was a random cat (that I have never fed) sitting in front of my garage. This cat wouldn’t budge at all, and it was refusing to move so I could pull my car in and go into my house. I honked, opened the garage - this cat wasn’t moving. After maybe ten minutes of watching and not interacting with this cat while it sat and pretended it didn’t hear or see my car, he left calmly. I went into my house and the chaotic energy was completely gone. 

Some people believe that catnip favors the goddess Baast as well. 

I will be using this plant to give to cats as well as putting some (along with a few more things) into a pillow that will aid in astral projection, calm sleep, dreaming, etc. I might make tea or lotions out of it too.

Sunflower

The flowers of the Sun. Native to North America and possibly Russia.

Sunflowers were used by Native Americans as a food, oil, and possibly dye. They’d eat the seeds or ground them to make breads. Often they were eaten alongside other foods. Some sources say Sunflower oil was used on hair and skin, also used to make bread. Once a sunflower was dried out, it’s huge stem may have been used as a building material. Some parts were used medicinally but I am not sure what for, and in some tribes it was used in ceremonies. 

This is another plant that has to do with the Sun and the Summer solstice. So, any meanings behind the Sun and Summer solstice are also meanings behind the Sunflower. Because of how many seeds it produces it’s also known as a fertility plant. 

If I’m being honest I only grew them because they look pretty. I might harvest them once they are grown since they are annuals and preserve them in a frame or jar to keep up the vibrant, happy, energetic moods in the house or put them in a “happy jar” to draw happiness and energy into my life. 

Over your cup of tea, move your hand in a clockwise direction 3 times and say:

“I am the tool you are the fire fill this cup with all I desire.”