How Plants Protect Themselves, Botanical Terpenes

Protect, hydrate, and nourish your houseplants and garden with plant powered wisdom.

Imagine the scent of lavender, peppermint, rosemary, or lemon verbena for a moment. All examples of powerful plant aromas aka botanical terpenes that are hard to forget once you've smelled them! 

Botanical terpenes are organic compounds plants create as built-in protection. These specialized scents offer a variety of benefits including protection against pests and pathogens and can even provide plants with natural sunscreen. Terpenes also influence the way nearby plants grow and aid in the communication of plants, tapping into the innate wisdom and powerful interconnection of our natural world. 

AND that is why we infuse those same organic compounds into our tonics!

2 Easy ways to harness the benefits of botanical terpenes

Steam Distilled and Slow Extraction

Fragrances, aromas, and scents can be extracted by steam distillation in the same way flavors are gathered for beverages like seltzers and sparkling water. This method involves boiling plant material in water until the steam contains the essential oil properties. This extracted steam is then trapped, condensed and cooled.

Make your own all purpose cleaner

Pine scented all purpose cleaner (you can substitute pine with lavender, rosemary, lemon verbena or peppermint too)

Gather ingredients:

16 ounce amber spray bottle or repurpose a plastic spray bottle

3 handfuls pine needles, dry to the touch

1 1/4 cup water

1 1/4 cup white vinegar

1/4 cup rubbing alcohol

one large glass jar

1. First remove needles from woody branches, be sure they are dry, then pack tightly into a glass jar with tight fitting lid.

2. Next, pour vinegar into the jar, covering all the pine needles and set aside out of direct sunlight for one-two weeks. This is when the magic happens! The vinegar works to slowly extract all the pine oils anti-microbial properties.

3. Once the extraction has finished, gently strain the pine needles out with a cheese cloth or fine strainer and add mixture to a 16 ounce spray bottle.

4. Then add ¼ cup rubbing alcohol and then fill the remainder of the bottle up with water. Seal and enjoy the benefits of cleaning your kitchen, bathroom, and surfaces with terpene rich all purpose cleaner!

Want to protect yourself and your family this spring and summer against unwanted insects? 

Grow your own pollinator friendly garden while encouraging unwanted pests to stay away! Here is a short list of herbs to grow and how to use them.

Check out ways to naturally repel insects in our previous blog post

Wishing you abundant growth and health,

Karina and Team SE