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Old August 1, 2018   #13
bower
Tomatovillian™
 
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Join Date: Feb 2012
Location: Newfoundland, Canada
Posts: 6,793
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Hyssop leaf is a quarter past rosemary on the way to pine. For me it is a useful spice in tiny amounts - it's part of the house salad dressing I made for many years, also dubbed "secret sauce" by our friends.
The plant is shrubby like sage, and suffers some dieback in our winters but is fine if you prune it in spring. It doesn't like to be crowded and needs a bit of weeding attention in my wild garden.
The leaves are great, but the flowers are out of this world delicious. I make a tincture in vodka, very nice medicine for sore throat, and of all the hyssop parts the petals alone make a taste that is truly sublime.
As for bees, one day I was out picking hyssop flowers into a glass bowl. The bowl was about 80% full when a small bumblebee came by and spotted the bowl of flowers. Without any hesitation the bee dove right into the bowl and submerged herself in the flowers. I could just hear some little buzzings and murmurings from below. I stood there for four or five minutes while the bee made its way through "heaven" I guess. And eventually emerged and flew away, with a tale to tell I suppose, if bees do tell their tales.
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