Navigation

<-- Back to Current Category

Book Review

By: Randall Sapphire, Fri Dec 9th, 2005 08:26:49 PM

Bud, Blossom, and Leaf: The Magical Herb Gardener's Handbook

Author: Dorothy Morrison

Trade Paperback, 192 pages

(Article continued below)

Publisher: Llewellyn

Publication date: January 2001

ISBN: 156718443X

More Information:

http://www.ecauldron.com/cncbook.php?asin=156718443X

Dorothy Morrison is one of Llewellyn's best authors. Bud, Blossom, & Leaf is another well-written Morrison book. In spite of the magickal trappings, this book is basically a book on herb gardening and herbal recipes.

The first part of this book is on growing herbs. This takes you from planning your garden through planting it, helping it grow, and finally harvesting your herbs. Morrison realizes that not all of her readers have a yard to plant a garden in so she covers both yard gardens and pot gardens. There's even a short section on hydroponic herb gardens. While I'm not a master gardener, the information doesn't seem at odds with what I know from my own attempts at gardens over the years. Most gardening activities in this section are enhanced with short rituals and spells you can perform as you do the tasks. As might be expected from the author of Everyday Magic, these spells and rituals are well-designed and well-written.

The second half of this book provides herb recipes for pest control, cleaning, bath and beauty products, first aid, and even food. A few samples: flea and mosquito repellent, wood cleaning polish, garden shampoo, herbal moisturizer, upset stomach tea, and herbal shortbread cookies. The final chapter of this section covers magical uses of herbs. This chapter features projects such as herb beads and papers, incense cones, and herb lamps.

While not a "must buy" book by any stretch of the imagination, Bud, Blossom, & Leaf is a useful introduction to gardening. It would be particularly useful for anyone wanting to incorporate magick into their gardening methods, but who can't quite figure out how.

This review is one of hundreds of reviews of Pagan, Wiccan, occult, and metaphysical books in The Cauldron: A Pagan Forum's Books and Reviews section at http://www.ecauldron.com/bookstore.php.

About the author: Randall Sapphire is the founder and co-host of The Cauldron: A Pagan Forum ( http://www.ecauldron.com/ ), a popular Pagan Interfaith web site and message board. He is also an editor at The Cheap Web Hosting Report ( http://www.cheapwebhostingreport.com/ ) and webmaster for a number of other sites.