Angelica for Inspiration

Angelica, Angelica archangelica

Angelica’s message is inspiration. When thinking about our Memoir Garden, imagine smelling the sweet aroma of this dramatic eight foot high plant towering above the other herbs. It’s a reminder to reach for loftier goals.

As with most herbs, it has a multi-century history and, in this case, intriguing legends about its name. According to one story, an angel appeared in a monk’s dream in the mid-1600s, when all of London feared the plague. She showed him a plant that could cure the disease. Supposedly, the monk found the herb and drank it as a tea after boiling it along with treacle (an antidote to poison) and nutmeg.

However it got its name, angelica is a good reminder that our inspiration can come from many sources and put to different uses. Angelica, at one time, was burnt as household incense. Today, its roots are used in tea, its stems are candied for cake decorations, and its leaves are cooked with rhubarb as a sweetener. In Finland and other cold northern climate, the stems are eaten with butter. In Lapland, the leaves, because of their antimicrobial properties, are wrapped around fish to preserve them on long journeys. In herbal medicine, angelica has been used to improve circulation and even to treat some bronchial problems.

As we walk in the Memoir Garden, this celestial herb reminds us that inspiration is nearby.

Visit our Writer’s Store with its products for encouragement and sharing that feature many of the herbs from our Memoir Garden.

Our Memoir Garden Tea Mug features beautiful drawings, created just for us, of ten herbs in our garden — angelica, chamomile, lavender, lemon balm, lemon verbena, mint, nasturtium, oregano, rose, and rosemary. The mug is a delight to use, a reminder of the inspirational messages that herbs hold for us. To learn more about our mugs, click here.