All-purpose plants: from natural soap to organic rope

The walking stick cabbage isn’t the only plant to have a double life. Garden Organic discovered some of the more novel ways their members put homegrown plants to good use

Ceanothus

“A beautiful evergreen known for its showy display of blue flowers, I make a beeline for our ceanothus when I’m taking visitors on a tour around our gardens,’” says Anton Rosenfeld, knowledge officer at Garden Organic. “Not many gardeners know that if you pick a few petals and add a splash of water, they froth up and create the perfect organic soap thanks to the natural saponins, which cleans hands after a day in the garden.”

Daylilies

“My wife, Cressida Haughton, also uses daylily leaves as plant ties,” adds Anton. “She discovered that the dry, strappy leaves make really strong and durable bindings, which she now uses in place of cable ties and string. There’s no need to twist several together, a single leaf is fine.

They work really well and are free.”

Brambles

Cleo de Vito, founder of the Irish-based local group the Good Life Network and long-standing member of Garden Organic, recommends using brambles to make twine. “It’s an old fashioned method, which is easy to do. Harvest stems in the spring and summer when there’s plenty of fresh growth (it needs to be pliable). “Remove thorns by using a sharp knife, or, as I prefer, running each stem through the lid of a jam jar with a small hole in it. Split the bramble in half lengthways and it’s ready to use.”

Marestail

“We had a lot of marestail in the garden when we first moved to Ireland,” recalls Cleo. “Initially, it drove me mad, but I’ve learnt to live with it over the years. It also helps that I have found a great use for it, too. The spiky foliage contains silica (in fact, it is the most abundant source of silica in the plant kingdom and was used to polish metal in the medieval ages), so it acts like a scourer and cleans birdbaths, chicken feeders, pots and even saucepans when we’ve been on camping trips.”