Cheery goldenrod brightens landscape

“… (T)he lands are lit with all the autumn blaze of Goldenrod …” (Helen Hunt Jackson)

Native to many lands, the goldenrod holds forth in late summer through autumn into frost, brightening the surroundings like dapples of sunlight. Often overlooked — or even maligned as an allergy bringer (it’s the companion Ragwort that is the real culprit) — Goldenrod (Solidago) has been appreciated and even revered for centuries.

Our native plumed beauty, Solidago Canadensis, blooms from mid-summer into the fall, and boasts composite clusters of yellow flowers formed above lance-leaved stems growing up to four feet tall. There are several varieties in our area, all preferring dry, sunny sites on meadows, slopes and up into the mountains and along riverbanks and gravel roadsides. Solidago missouriensis closely resembles Canadensis, but the Northern Goldenrod (S. multiradiata) looks and grows more like an aster — apropos, since goldenrods are members of the Asteraceae family. A low-growing alpine Goldenrod (S. spathulata), common on the coast but rare here, is great for rock-gardens.

All of these can enhance sunny home gardens as a welcome accent to blue perennials: Larkspur, Delphinium, Monk’s hood, and the periwinkle-colored Rocky Mountain Aster or Michelmas daisy. All of these are natives and as such, prefer natural, acidic soil with no additives necessary. They will never need special care, only asking for a little extra water during dry summers.

Considered only as an ornamental now, in past eras, it was an important part of the pharmacopaea of medical use. In the late 1500’s John Gerard’s “Herbal — “The History of Plants,” extolled it “above all other herbes for the stopping of bloud in bleeding wounds” and bemoaned the fact that since it grew wild in Hampstead Wood was overlooked in favor of less efficient medications “from beyond the sea.” T’was ever thus, right? But we who love the outdoors and trust its healing powers can take heart in the fact that if we cut ourselves out in the boonies and there is Goldenrod in the vicinity, we can simply pat those showy flowerheads into place on the wound. (We could also do the same with Yarrow’s {Achillea} ferny leaves but this column isn’t about them).

A century or so later, in 1649, Nicholas Culpeper published “The Complete Herbal” and reiterated Gerard’s words. But Gerard’s background was in garden design and hands-on planting, making the transition to herbal, rather than ornamental, usage gradually. Culpeper, however, studied pharmacology from the beginning — so his thrust was nearly totally medical. As a result, his approach to Goldenrod went Gerard one better — with even more enthusiastic praises for its benefits.

Through study, trial and error, he found that while Goldenrod is “a sovereign wound-herb” it is “most effectively used as a distilled water” ...as…”an excellent diuretic and few remedies exceed it where there is gravel, stone in the kidney” … so that “the parts are cleansed and healed at the same time.” It is also recommended as a gargle, mouthwash for throat ulcers, and a wash for “venereal cases.”

As backup, a modern day herbalist/medico writes that an infusion of 1 ounce of the leaves to 1 pint of boiling water taken in doses of 2 fluid ounces 3-4 times a day serves as treatment for arthritis, exzyma monthly discomfort in women, as well as removing feelings of nausea due to stomach disorder. Too, the powder of the dried leaves can be applied to ulcers externally to stimulate healing. Seven centuries of testing has to make one a believer. This stuff is really good!

If you’re not into natural healing with plants, go with Arthur Kruckeberg’s advice in his “Gardening with Native Plants of the Pacific NW:” He points out Gertrude Jekyll’s use of Goldenrod as part of “the harmony of an old-fashioned flower bed” and asks us to look closer and marvel at “the elegant symmetry of hundreds of tiny flower heads on slender arching branchlets making a golden glow on into autumn.” He tells us to simply cut some pieces of the extensive rhizome system for easy transplanting and mentions that Goldenrod also comes readily from seeds, but as a perennial may take up to three years for blooms to form.

Many area nurseries should carry plants for spring insertion in your gardens for the fall show of Goldenrod’s sunny beauty, and Bob Wilson of Cedar Mt. Perennials, 208-683-2387, can provide more information and perhaps plants as well.

Valle Novak writes the Country Chef and Weekend Gardener columns for the Daily Bee. She can be reached at bcdailybee@bonnercountydailybee.com. or by phone at 208-265-4688.