Homeopathy: Healing Plants with Plants

Arnica is used to treat skin injuries resulting from sprains, breaks or falls. So why shouldn’t a natural product such as this help plants as well as people?

It turns out that Christiane Maute had the right idea. To her amazement, when she took a look at the delphinium the next morning, she saw that the tip had grown back with the stem; the delphinium had righted itself and recovered completely. And that was just a one-time dose of homeopathic globules1 – supposedly “esoteric madness” considered nothing more than a placebo by many. Yet unlike conventional remedies, this ‘placebo effect’ can heal plants in a mild and gentle way – and on top of that causes absolutely no harmful side effects to bees, insects and other animals.

Homeopathy for Plants

One thing needs to be clarified right away – you don’t kill or ‘fight’ bacteria, pathogens or harmful pests using homeopathic remedies. In fact, you are doing just the opposite: you are strengthening the plant and its organism to such an extent that vital energy can once more flow unhindered, helping the plant to regain its full strength. In this way it may achieve its full potential and can heal itself. That said, before you start treating a plant it is important to find out what has led to the sickness. Plants depend on various health factors, and if one or more of these is not quite right, it will cause a weakness in the plant that sooner or later develops into illness. The homeopath Heinz Weder shows us the factors that are important to plants’ health, which must always be investigated before treatment. (This applies to all life in general, including humans and animals.):

✜ Air: Is the plant situated in a negative place? Does it get enough fresh air? Has it been placed next to a busy road where it suffers from exhaust emissions? Was a chemical sprayed nearby, which got into the plant?
✜ Water: Is the plant getting too little or too much? Can it absorb it properly? Does it lack nutrients?
✜ Climate/weather: Was the plant exposed to large fluctuations in temperature? Is it burning or freezing?
✜ Care/Hygiene: Is the plant being looked after properly? Is the environment hygienic? Are sick leaves and twigs lying around on the ground? Has it been infected by a contaminated garden implement?
✜ Space/environment: Does the plant have enough space? How is its social life? Plants like society too; they even need it to exchange important information and enter into symbioses. Therefore, if possible, always put two of the same type of plant together.2 Some plant combinations harmonise very well and even protect each other. Equally, some plant varieties cannot stand each other!
✜ Peace: Has the plant been able to rest; could it regenerate? Was the plant wintered correctly, for example?
✜ Food/soil: Is the plant getting all the necessary nutrients? Does it have the right sort of soil?
✜ Light: Is the plant getting too much or too little light?

Before you treat a plant with the appropriate homeopathic remedy, all harmful material factors must be removed. This will fortify the plant, that means overcome its negative state and allow vital energy to flow once more. As a ‘bonus’ you can then strengthen the plant using homeopathy. The primary goal when dealing with sick plants should always be not to heal the plant with homeopathy, but eliminate the causes of weakness or illness. After all, a fortified plant will not become ill in the first place. The biggest difference to conventional science or medicine is the idea that (weak) vital strength triggers illness; for scientists/medical practitioners, pathogens are the cause.

Once you check the factors mentioned above and take into account any changes, you can now start to apply homeopathy – and achieve astonishing results.

We would also like to give you a few field reports on plants and agriculture. You can learn more about the application of homeopathy later in the article.

Field reports with plants3

Strong winds blew off the top of a little redcurrant bush and tossed it through the garden. The particularly sad thing was that the little bush was laden with berries that were almost ripe. The owner doused the fracture and trunk with Arnica 200c, then bound the top back to the trunk with bast fibre. Later, the soil, trunk and crown were once again treated with arnica and a short time later the fruit was ready to harvest. One year later, when the bast bandage was removed, she noticed with great astonishment that the crown and trunk had grown back together perfectly.

The cherry tree in Christiane Maute’s garden suddenly exhibited signs of sickness: the leaves were withering and dropping off. The homeopath believed it to be a fungal infestation and watered the trunk and soil with Thuja 200c accordingly, repeating the treatment one week later. A few leaves were still falling off, but on the whole they were getting greener. This caused quite a stir in the neighbourhood, since Christiane Maute’s cherry tree was possibly the only one in the Lake Constance region not affected by Monilia fungal spores.

The lantana bush belonging to an acquaintance of Christiane Maute was severely affected with spider mites – so badly that his gardener advised him to get rid of the bush. After a second dose of Psorinum 10,000c, however, all the spider mites disappeared.

Calendula 6x (“6d” in some countries) was used to treat greenhouse salad seedlings after transplanting, with the result that they recovered much more quickly and grew more strongly.

To combat caterpillars on redcurrants, the gardener dissolved three globules of Thuja occidentalis 30c in ten litres of water and administered the treatment once. After a week, no more problems were evident.
A woman related the following story about her fig tree: On May 20th, the tree was still standing bare in her garden and there were no shoots. As the plant had experienced a very hard, cold winter, the owner gave it Aconitum 200c (see ABC rule under Tips). On June 7th, Potassium 200c was also administered because no life is possible without potassium. Lo and behold – after a few weeks, the little fig tree was in full bloom.
A pomegranate tree had become badly sunburnt. After a one-off dose of Belladonna 200c it shed all its withered leaves, grew new ones, and grew twice as big.

Homeopathy in Agriculture

What works best on a small scale can also be transferred to a large scale. Thus there are increasing numbers of farmers championing homeopathy and applying it very successfully in their work.

For example, we have Pius Strickler from the Homeopathy Farm in Switzerland, who shared his experiences at the symposium “Homeopathy for Plants”. The first time he encountered homeopathy was through his wife, a trained doctor’s assistant. When calves on his farm became infected with the rotavirus in 2003, the animals died of watery diarrhoea within two days. The vet was unfortunately powerless to help – he gave them injections, made infusions, gave them vitamins and minerals, but nothing worked.

Strickler’s wife urged him to give the calves 4–5 globules of the homeopathic remedy Carbo vegetabilis, which the farmer duly did (if only to show his wife that the “little sugar beads” wouldn’t do a thing). When Strickler went into the stall 90 minutes later, to his surprise he saw that the calves were now lying in a different place. Somewhat unsure, he gave the animals a second dose. Just ten minutes later, the first calves were back on their feet and wobbling over to their mother to drink. And that was the moment homeopathy became part of the farm’s life.

Pius Strickler then began to use homeopathy on plants, too. When fire blight struck, the farmer had around 500 young fruit trees on his land. The disease wrought a lot of damage in the surrounding farms and came dangerously close to Strickler’s orchards; many infected cultures were just 30 metres from his land. So Strickler decided to take natural preventative measures. In actual fact, he didn’t fight the disease at all – he just helped his trees protect themselves against infection. And with great success, too: his 500 young trees all remained safe.

According to Strickler, there is no universally valid solution for a particular illness. Instead, you must always look at the whole picture and act accordingly. What works brilliantly for one farmer may have absolutely no effect for another under different circumstances. So Pius Strickler thought carefully about what would give his trees the optimum support and sprayed this particular remedy onto the trees and predominantly also the ground. In the case of fire blight, the soil was suffering from an ‘inflammation’. As a result, anti-inflammatory material was administered, as well as additional substances such as phosphorus (to strengthen phosphor intake) to support the trees.

When deficiency symptoms occur in plants or trees, Strickler recognised that the cause usually lies in a blocked capacity to absorb the nutrient rather than an actual lack of said substance. In the case of calcium deficiency, homeopathic calcium is administered so that the plant can absorb calcium by itself again. The plant’s ability to regulate calcium is usually disturbed – so you can give it as many nutrients as you want; the plant still won’t make optimal use of them.

Pius Strickler emphasised the importance of dealing with homeopathy properly. You can’t simply say, “Remedy A helps illness XY”. This kind of generalisation is simply not possible and will only lead to newcomers trying out any old remedy, which then just won’t take effect. Frustrated, they come to the conclusion that “Homeopathy doesn’t work.” To be successful, you need patience and the gift of observation to find the right preparation.

Strickler also treats his spelt fields with homeopathy. Rather mischievously, he adds that the miller is always amazed at the Stricklers’ beautiful and heavily-laden corn – without any use of artificial fertiliser.
As a result of various environmental influences, individual deficiencies can arise in every garden or farm. On his farm, Strickler found that homeopathy in combination with EM (effective microorganisms) produces the best and fastest effect. EMs bind the antioxidants in the ground, which occur through the use of artificial fertilisers and biosolids, etc. Furthermore, Strickler fertilises his soil with PRP4 in order to provide it with minerals. So don’t be too blinkered – why not start experimenting yourself to get the best result. After all, many roads lead to Rome.

Strickler also mixes EM into feed, dung and liquid manure. When he puts the dung and liquid manure on the field, the EMs go straight into the ground and from there back into the animal feed. And so the circle is complete. He also sprays EMs in the stalls for a better environment and to protect against flies. Even in organic businesses, foreign toxins may be present under certain circumstances, stresses Strickler. Thus, for example, straw serving primarily as bedding may be steeped in herbicides and fungicides. The animals eat from it, too, and after mucking out the stalls, this chemical preparation gets back into the field. From there it makes its way back into the animal stall via the food. As a result, Strickler has decided to buy organic straw – which he needs to do less and less, by the way, as in the meantime he has been making his own organic straw by cultivating spelt.