Pip Waller - The Home and Happiness: Botanical Handbook

The

HOME AND HAPPINESS

Botanical Handbook

PIP WALLER

T HERE IS A GREEN REVOLUTION happening all around us, with people everywhere turning to plants in search of more natural ways to care for their home and garden. Throughout history and across cultures, plants have been used for food, shelter, clothes, hygiene and medicine, among other things. Plants contain the proteins and other nutrients that all animals need to thrive, so we depend on them for our survival. The soil itself is nourished by living plants, and even when they die, they decompose to form soil from which new plants can grow. Plants sustain all life; everything we need can be obtained from plants.

Today, however, the central role plants play in human lives has been almost forgotten in the Western world. After several generations of urbanized living, those in modern industrialized countries are far removed from nature and rely on polluting man-made chemical products, many of which damage the living world we depend on. And among those of us who live in rural areas, many no longer regularly cultivate, gather and use the helpful plants that grow all around us.

We have become reliant on harsh, often toxic and highly polluting man-made products to care for our bodies, ourselves, our homes and our gardens. These not only damage our own health, but that of our planet. The average household cleaning or laundry product comes with health warnings if you start to look at packets, you will see alerts such as Contains VOCs (volatile organic compounds), which hurt the lungs and contribute to respiratory disease, and Dangerous to aquatic life, which speaks for itself. Then there is the increasing level of plastic waste, in our landfills and oceans, now such a serious problem that everyone is aware of it (not just dedicated environmentalists).

Fortunately, the plant world holds many solutions, and the individual contributions we can each make will combine to form an avalanche of positive change. The previous volume in this series, The Health and Beauty Botanical Handbook, covered the use of plants in caring for the body. This book details what the natural world can offer in caring for our homes and gardens.

Natural methods of cleaning are not new. Previous generations knew all about them: how to use plants high in natural saponins for their detergent properties; how to make soap from mixing alkaline lye (from wood ash) with oils from plants; how to make and use vinegar to cut through grease; how certain plants kill microbes and deter insects; how to use kitchen staples such as bicarbonate of soda and lemon as powerful cleaning agents; how to beautify the home with paints made from flour, plant oil and other natural pigments; how to colour fabrics using natural plant dyes; how to protect the home and create the desired atmosphere using ancient knowledge about the energetic properties of herbs. This book contains all this and more.

We are living in extraordinary times, when the plight of our planet is almost daily front-page news. Plastics fill the oceans, there are concerns about carbon footprints, and increasing allergies linked to overuse of strong disinfectant and endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs as the World Health Organization calls them) are implicated in many serious and life-threatening diseases. These EDCs are found in an alarming array of household products, including cleaning sprays, washing and laundry products, paints, dyes in clothes and furniture, flame retardants and more not to mention in plastics that then leach into our food and drink.

It can be very disturbing to learn about the seriousness of the situation, but a great antidote to a problem is the finding of solutions. Fortunately, the natural world offers countless, ecologically sound and healthy alternatives for the needs of the modern household. This book details over 175 of these, and hopefully will encourage the reader to start their own lifelong journey of discovery into the abundant help on offer from the plant world.