Naturally Healing Your Plants With Homeopathy

by Debbie Brown

Homeopathy does not mean "home remedies", but homeo - "same" pathos - "suffering." A homeopathic remedy will cure the same symptoms that a large or repeated dose of the crude substance it is made from will cause.

I was taught this wonderful healing discipline by the late Dr. Todd Schlapfer, a kind, sensitive, and intuitive man. He gave me health. I could go on about how the remedies have helped me and my family, but I'm here to talk about healing plants. 

It is amazing that the same remedy that helps a person with an injury will also help an injured plant. Arnica Montana is an herb, and if you were to ingest a goodly amount of it, you might start to feel bruised, sore and have other symptoms of injury. Using like cures like, the principle of homeopathy, taking homeopathically potentized Arnica will treat an actual injury. It is great (in persons and animals) for bleeding, bruising, swelling, and even infection or other effects from  injury. A friend's child would get bladder infections from the trauma of necessary catheterizations, and the mother did not want to give frequent rounds of antibiotics. Arnica was the solution. It has helped meningiomas (a tumor on the meninges of the brain) after a head injury. And it is wonderful in high potencies after mental or emotional injury that causes PTSD, agoraphobia, and such issues. There are hundreds of remedies for various problems, but here I will point out the similarity of using Arnica for injury in plants. 

Transplant shock, shipping trauma, a broken stem, beatings from hail, trampling, deer chomping, and anything imaginable that can injure a plant can be treated with Arnica, often to great success. Sometimes a little aid with a stake and bandaging to hold a plant back in shape is necessary while it heals, but often it will quickly recover with just the remedy. See my picture below.

There are other remedies for all types of plant disease as well. Fungal, bacterial, and viral problems can be cured--leaf spots, mildew, rot, poor growth, and more.

Pests such as insects and slugs are repelled by a healthy plant. In fact, the very symptom showing that a plant needs a certain remedy is that it has aphids, ants, weevils, scale insects, or another pest. The remedy is chosen by that to which the plant is susceptible along with any other symptoms noted by observation. 

Another matter to consider is the causation of the plant's failure to thrive. Damage from cold, heat, lack of water, neglect, too much sea air, contamination by chemicals, and other conditions can often be healed by a remedy. There is also help for ponds and aquariums! 

I could write a book on the topic, but others have (and I need more experience first!) I can recommend Homeopathy for Plants by Christiane Maute available here. Likely you can find much information on the internet, as well.

I suggest having Arnica 30C and 200C (200C for more severe injuries) on hand for the family, critters, and plants. Try it after a hard workout to repair the little bits of you that would otherwise hurt the next day--you may be pleasantly surprised! If you forget and wake up stiff and sore, try a dose of Rhus Toxicodendron 30c. Remedies can be taken as needed in these potencies, and there are homeopathic first aid books available to help you on Homeopathic.com. (I've been ordering great products from Dana for decades.) Higher potencies, such as 1M, 10M, 50M, and CM require the guidance of a trained homeopath.

For plants, add a couple of the pillules of your chosen remedy to a half cup of pure water in a clean dropper bottle, close it, and beat the bottle some 50 times against a stack of books covered with a folded towel (or even against your hand.) Afterward, add just a few drops of alcohol such as everclear, enough to protect the remedy, and swirl it in. Drip just a few drops of the water on the injured plant. Allow a little to fall into the soil below. When you have just a little of the water remaining, you can add more pure water, repeat the beating, and add another few drops of alcohol. Very cost effective!

I have a number of amber (to keep out light) bottles, each labeled with the remedy that is inside it, so I am ready for whatever issue comes up in the garden. You'll find much more helpful information in the book. 

I just want to encourage you to give inexpensive, nontoxic, and nonpolluting homeopathic remedies a try in the garden. Be prepared for surprising results!

On the left is a borage plant I broke when it was tiny. You can see the break in the stem, lower left. I dosed it with Arnica, and this is it a month later, compared to the best of my other borage plants from the same planting. You won't always get this great result, but it's worth a try!