Yarrow - Master of the Blood

As you can tell, I'm not a very consistent blogger. I love educating about medicinal plants and how "easy" it is to grow them in your own garden and use them. So this next series of posts will be about pretty common plants, bushes or trees in a zone 4 garden/yard and what their medicinal benefits are and best ways to preserve that.

Let's start with Yarrow (Achillea millefolium). A perennial that is easy to grow and very common in our area to find. Most people know that Yarrow is good for fevers - but it goes way beyond that. Grab yourself a cup of tea and read on to learn why Yarrow is called 'the master of the blood'.

When considering medicinal benefits of Yarrow, we utilize the whole plant, but it is the flower that is considered most powerful. If you pull off a flower and taste it, you will find it bitter and will make your mouth pucker a bit, due to its astringency. This gives us a clue as to what yarrow is useful for.

The bitter flavor tells us yarrow is helpful in digestion; it stimulates appetite and digestion, predominately for the liver and pushing out congestion.

The astringent (pucker) flavor tells us yarrow is useful for tightening and tonifiing tissues. This can help with conditions like diarrhea or in stopping the bleeding of a wound and healing a wound. This astringency also makes it useful in tightening up the tissues to heal hemorrhoids.

Yarrow also plays an important role as a Circulatory stimulant, a Diaphoretic (bringing blood to the surface and stimulating sweating during a fever), an Emmenagogue (promotes to movement of blood during a women's menses and can staunch excessive menstrual bleeding), is Hypotensive (tones blood vessels to lower blood pressure slightly), diuretic (moving fluids out of body), Modulates Inflammatoin (internally and externally), and is Antiseptic (especially for infected wounds.

So lets put that in common language - how am I using yarrow for my health?

The number one use of Yarrow is for wounds - to stop the bleeding internally and externally. Roll up some the the fresh leaves and stuff it up a nose for a nose bleed. Chew up some fresh plant and apply it to a wound or make a poultice with fresh or dried yarrow made as a strong tea then soak your cotton in it and place on wound (or drink if internal). Wash a wound with yarrow tea or swish on some yarrow tea for bleeding gums or after a tooth extraction. Yarrow is considered an important herb for any first aid kit. It stops the bleeding, promotes healing, prevents infection, controls the inflammation and tightens the tissues together so they can heal. I include yarrow in my first aid balm for these purposes.

Probably the second most common use of Yarrow is for colds and flu for fever management. It's effect is pretty fast when taking as a hot tea (see our Winter Blues tea).

Yarrow is part of a classic triplet fever formula: Yarrow, Peppermint and Elder flower.

"A fever is the increase in temperature of the body to 'cook out' an invading pathogen. It's extremely important to understand that a fever is.... not something to be suppressed. It is our bodies natural way of protecting us from infection. When a fever is suppressed, pathogens are able to reproduce much more rapidly and what may have been a 2-3 day infection becomes a 7-10 day infection..... If a fever is not productive (low grade and not resolving), yarrow will produce profuse sweating as a diaphoretic and help the body to do what it has been struggling to achieve. By driving the heat up and out, it will open the pores of the skin and induce sweating and thus lowering the body temperature and helping the fever to break." (Sajah Popham, Yarrow, Materia Medica)

I also use Yarrow in a tea blend to help with my excess heat. Since going through menopause, I am always hot. This is after my hot flashes have ended. I am just a warm person and shedding layers of clothes. Over time, this heat coming off my body has also included a high blood pressure and increase in inflamation in my body. Adding Yarrow to my heart health tea blend helps to remove that excess heat and irritation in the circulatory system that in the long term, affects my cardiovascular system.

Yarrow is generally considered safe for use. Considerations are to not use during pregnancy as it is a emmenagouge (promotes uterine bleeding) and for some it can cause photosensistivity after long term use. Yarrow is typically a short term herb for acute symptoms, so generally not a problem.

I harvest my yarrow for its leaves and flowers and use some fresh to make yarrow oil infusion to use directly on the skin or make into a balm. Ideal for rheumatic joints, varicose veins, bruises, minor cuts

The rest of my Yarrow I harvest, dry and store for uses in teas. I do not drink yarrow tea straight, due to its bitterness, but I love it in a blend for dealing with fevers, cold and flu, blood pressure and internal inflammation.

A nice way to use Yarrow is in a wound wash (make as need it, does not store well). Take equal parts Yarrow, Calendula flowers and Plantain leaf and make a strong tea. Strain it and apply topically to sore joints from inflammation or to wounds to cleanse.

A common question is, does it matter what color yarrow you use? The white yarrow grows wild around here and is great to use. Pink shades of yarrow are found in Europe and favored there (I like to grow this one). I do not use the yellow variety of yarrow.

Lastly, yarrow is beneficial for your garden as its aromatic flowers attract beneficial insects and repels peskier insects. It is also a dynamic accumulator. When yarrow's leaves decompose, it concentrates valuable nutrients into the soil (Phosphorus, Potassium and Copper).

Enjoy that yarrow growing in your yard for many reasons, stay healthy and maybe plant some more??

Thanks for listening.