How and when to collect immortelle for drying, storage features and recommendations

For a long time people used natural gifts to be treated, took extracts from plants and decoctions cooked on their basis. The most famous healing plant, which is used to promote health and maintain beauty, is immortelle. In order for the plant to benefit, the collection, drying and storage of the immortelle must follow the rules.

What is this plant?

This perennial plant, which is distinguished by its bright coloration. When flowering immortelle "dresses up" in a bright yellow "hat" of flowers. In the people this plant was called in different ways: "cat's paws", gold color, "sunny gold", immortelle sandy. When to collect, how to dry and use - a long tradition, which came to us from herbalists and healers. To get all the benefits from the plant, do not neglect these rules.

Immortelle, which is scientifically called Helichrysum monstrosum, outwardly differs from the sandy immortelle, but there are useful properties in both.

The first species has a long stem, on which the "double" flowers blossom. The second, sandy immortelle, has a lot of straight leaves with the tops lowered. The flowers of this plant are also numerous, small, have either a bright yellow color or an orange hue.

Useful properties of the immortelle

So what is so special about this gold color that our ancestors recognized as useful in it and brought this information to us? Immortelle is a real medicinal plant, it contains ascorbic acid, essential oils, resins, carotene, tannins, many vitamins and trace elements. These substances are contained in the flowers of the plant, flowering lasts from June until late autumn. But you need to know exactly when to collect the immortelle for drying.

From what help immortelle?

Preparations from immortelle are very popular, because they are low-toxic, in comparison with chemical medicines. At what illnesses it is necessary to apply immortelle?

1. Disease of the intestines and stomach, indigestion. In this case, immortelle will adjust the production of gastric juice, normalizes acidity.
2. Stones in the pancreas. Immortelle makes bile secretion, activates and stabilizes the gland. Changing the composition of bile, it helps to remove stones and sand from it.
3. Cholecystitis, cirrhosis, jaundice, and other liver diseases.
4. Atherosclerosis.
5. Obesity, metabolic disorders.
6. Ischemic disease.
7. Atherosclerosis.
8. Diabetes.
9. Stones in the kidneys.

Of course, it is more effective to use broths from immortelle not as a basic medicine, but as an addition to the course therapy, in order to accelerate the process of convalescence.

Do not self-prescribe yourself treatment immortelle, talk to your doctor. Only a specialist will be able to determine how an immortelle will be combined with already prescribed and used drugs.

When to collect the immortelle for drying?

The immortelle blossoms from June to September, but the moment of flowering can vary depending on the region and the conditions of the summer. The plant retains the most useful properties in its flowers, but not for a very long time. Therefore, it is necessary to catch the moment when to collect the immortelle for drying. If you make a mistake, collect flowers sooner or later, then they will not be endowed with any useful properties, they will fit only on the herbarium. Let's consider the basic rules of collection:

• Flowers must be collected until they are fully opened. On the outer rim of the inflorescence buds should be still closed. If you wait until the flowers completely dissolve, you can stay without a medicine. With further manipulations with the plant, the buds that have been dissolved will simply fall off, leaving you a pedicel.
• Do not cut the plant completely, cut only the baskets of the inflorescences. In order for the process to go faster, and drying was easier, you can cut off whole panicles.
• Use scissors for assembly. If you tear flowers with your hands, then you can kill the whole plant. Its stem is very strong, there is a danger of tearing the immortelle straight from the root.
• Choose locations that are far from roads and the city. This is an important point, since the immortelle must be treated, and not filled with harmful substances. Growing near the road flowers absorb all the poisons from the exhaust, dust. This you will take with useful substances. So do not be lazy, leave the car at the curb and on foot go look for immortelle.

The weather for collection should also contribute. When is it better to collect immortelle for drying - in the morning or in the evening? On the street must be dry and warm, the morning dew should already come down. The most optimal time for collection is before lunch, until the sun has started to "drink" from flowers useful substances along with moisture.

If you collect immortelle in the rain or with dew, then many useful substances will lose.

If you follow all the rules above, how and when to collect an immortelle for drying, then from one bush in a season it is possible to extract raw materials several times. The new baskets after the collection will be ready in a week.

Drying the immortelle

When we collect the immortelle for drying, we determined. The question remains: how to dry the plant correctly? To become a truly experienced herbalist, you need to remember that you need to harvest and dry herbs correctly, without depriving them of useful properties. It is necessary to follow the following points:

• You can not leave flowers in a basket or bag for a long time. Start the workpiece at most four hours after collection. If the plant is kept in a closed state for a long time, it will start to deteriorate.
• Panicles are better to hang out. If you collected plants with part of the stem, then tie them in small bundles and hang them on the rope with flowers down.
• Spread the flowers evenly on a flat surface. If only flowers were to be collected, then they should be scattered over a surface covered with thick paper or cardboard.
• Dry only in a warm, dark and well-ventilated room. For these purposes, a storage room or a room where the rays of the sun do not fall will do.
• The temperature in the dryer is no higher than forty degrees. If for drying you use a special dryer, then the temperature in it should be at least thirty and not more than forty degrees.

How to store ready immortelle?

Here you have properly collected the plant and dried it. It remains only to keep it right.

To begin with, make sure that the plant is really well dried and the drying should be stopped: break a couple of twigs, if they become brittle and crumble, then you can start packing.

In order for the plant not to deteriorate, it is necessary to pack it in a well-ventilated tank. This can be cardboard or paper boxes, bags of cloth. Banks are by no means suitable!

Sign the date of collection and packing on sacks or boxes. Immortelle can be used for treatment for three years from the date of collection.

Immortelle: planting and care when collecting flowers

Many gardeners plant an immortelle on their own plot. Someone does it for decorative purposes, someone grows it for a medicine, so you do not have to go far beyond it.

Immortelle, although growing without the help of people in the meadows, but in the garden will have to properly take care of him. The first thing a person who decides to plant this plant in his or her own is the love of an immortal to warmth and sunshine. Do not plant bushes in shady places, next to bushes and trees.

Immortelle is one-year and many years old. Seeds of the annual can be bought or collected directly after flowering. Seeds are planted in seedlings in a greenhouse or in pots at home. After the plant will have two leaves, it can be planted on the ground. Put sand and peat in each hole. Do not forget to loosen and water.

The roots of a perennial species will have to be mined in nature. Find a good adult bush that consists of several bushes. Carefully dig it from the root, divide into separate twigs. Plant on your site in good soil. For the winter, carefully cover the roots of the plant with foliage and grass, so that frost does not destroy it.

Collect the flowers of a domesticated immortelle follows the same technology as the wild one. Carefully follow the watering - do not overdry or pour the earth.

Take it seriously to the immortelle

This is a truly medicinal plant. He has contraindications as well as with other medicines. Be sure to consult a doctor so as not to damage your health. Do not be treated independently, this you can only harm yourself and your relatives.