Botanicals Glossary

There is a reason lavender has never left us. It has been with English domestic life for centuries. In linen drawers. In wash water. Hung above doorways in dry summer bunches. It is one of the few scents that most people carry a memory of before they ever seek it out.

Ours is grown in the sunlit southern counties where free-draining chalk soil pushes the plant to concentrate its oils. Distilled close to harvest while the flowers are still open and fresh. The scent is clean. Soft. Recognisably herbal with a green edge that synthetic lavender never quite captures.

In diffusion it carries easily without ever crowding a room. In a blend it acts as the heart, the note that everything else orients around. The most reliable oil we work with. Gentle enough to be present all day. Complex enough to be worth it.

Roman chamomile has been grown in English gardens for so long it feels native. Low-growing, apple-scented, quietly persistent. It spreads between paving stones and along path edges, releasing its scent underfoot. There is something deeply grounding about a plant that simply gets on with it.

The oil is soft and warm, with a slightly sweet, apple-like character that synthetic chamomile never quite replicates. It does not announce itself. It settles. In a blend it rounds off harder edges and brings a gentle warmth that makes everything feel more considered.

It has been used in English households for centuries for its calming qualities. Not as a trend. Simply as something people kept coming back to because it worked.

Clary sage is one of those plants that rewards patience. Its scent is not immediately obvious. You have to lean in, brush the leaves, let it open slowly. Then it delivers something complex and grounding, earthy, slightly sweet, with a depth that lingers.

English-grown clary sage has a green, almost mossy quality that warm-climate varieties lack. The cool growing season concentrates something quieter and more nuanced. It does not perform. It grounds.

In a blend it acts as a bridge between lighter herbaceous notes and deeper base notes, giving the whole composition a spine without drawing attention to itself.

Rosemary has been in English gardens since the Romans. It grows against south-facing walls and in cottage borders, releasing its sharp, clean scent whenever the sun warms it or the wind moves through it. It is one of the most recognisable scents in the English landscape and one of the most useful.

The oil is brisk and clarifying. It does not soften or compromise. In a blend it provides structure and lift, cutting through heavier notes and bringing the whole composition into focus. Used carefully it invigorates without overwhelming.

It has been associated with memory and remembrance for centuries. Carried at funerals and weddings alike. A plant that asks you to pay attention.

Peppermint is actually a hybrid native to England, a natural cross between watermint and spearmint first documented in Hertfordshire in the 17th century. It spread quickly through English gardens and became one of the most widely grown medicinal herbs in the country. This is genuinely an English plant.

English peppermint oil has a bright, clean, distinctly cool character. It is immediate. The nose knows it in an instant. In a blend it acts as the sharp intake of breath, the moment that clears and lifts everything around it.

Used carefully it adds energy and focus without aggression. The top note that makes the whole blend feel awake.

Melissa, or lemon balm, is one of the quieter presences in the English herb garden. It does not demand attention. It grows in cottage borders and kitchen gardens, its scent only fully releasing when you brush against it or run a leaf between your fingers. Then it gives you something genuinely lovely, fresh, lemon-bright, with a soft honeyed warmth underneath.

The oil is precious. It takes an enormous quantity of plant material to produce a small amount of true melissa oil, which is why it is often substituted with cheaper alternatives. Ours is genuinely English-grown and distilled. The difference is noticeable.

In a blend it adds a citrus brightness that feels botanical rather than sharp, closer to lemon verbena than lemon zest. A note that lifts without cutting.

Dill is one of the most underestimated plants in English aromatherapy. Its feathery leaves and flat yellow flower heads are a familiar sight in summer kitchen gardens, but its oil is something most people have never encountered in this form.

English dill oil is green and fresh with a slight anise quality that is soft rather than medicinal. It carries something of the quality of walking through a summer garden after rain, clean, slightly sharp, unmistakably alive. A top note that adds genuine complexity to a blend without demanding recognition.

Yarrow is one of the oldest medicinal plants in the English countryside. It grows in hedgerows and meadows, along footpaths and field edges, its flat-topped white flower heads familiar to anyone who has spent time in the English countryside. It has been used by healers and herbalists for thousands of years.

The oil is complex and slightly medicinal, herbaceous and green with a warmth underneath that makes it more interesting than it first appears. It is a note that adds depth and character to a blend rather than sweetness or lift. Used carefully it grounds the lighter top notes and gives the whole composition something to hold onto.

It is a plant that has always been associated with healing and courage, with the kind of strength that comes from endurance rather than force.

Angelica is one of the great English botanical plants, tall, architectural, deeply rooted in the tradition of the physic garden. It has been grown in monastery and apothecary gardens for centuries, valued for both its medicinal qualities and its extraordinary scale. In late summer it towers over most other plants in the border, its large flat flower heads held high.

The seed oil is complex and grounding, earthy, slightly rooty, with a musky warmth that sits at the bottom of a blend and holds everything else in place. It is the note that makes a fragrance feel complete.

Hemp has been grown in England for centuries, for rope, for cloth, for oil. It is one of the oldest cultivated plants in the English countryside, deeply embedded in the agricultural history of this land. The essential oil is not what most people expect. It is green and earthy, with a grounding quality that anchors a blend without heaviness.

English hemp oil has a distinctly botanical character, clean earth and green stem, the smell of the field rather than anything heady or resinous. In a blend it acts as a quiet anchor, grounding lighter notes and giving the whole composition a rootedness that feels very English.

Thyme is one of the most characterful plants in the English herb garden. Low-growing, woody-stemmed, unfussy about soil. It thrives in the same chalk downland conditions that suit lavender and produces an oil that is sharp, warm and unmistakably herbaceous.

English thyme oil has a directness to it that Mediterranean varieties sometimes lack. It does not soften. It adds a warm, slightly medicinal edge to a blend that gives everything around it more presence. Used sparingly it adds backbone. Used generously it leads.

It has been part of English gardens and medicine chests for as long as records go back. A plant that asks nothing of the grower and gives everything to the blend.

Sage has been in English gardens since at least the Middle Ages and probably much longer. It is a constant in the kitchen garden and the herb border, its silver-green leaves releasing their warm, slightly medicinal scent whenever touched. There is something deeply familiar about it, a scent that feels lived-in rather than discovered.

English sage oil is warm and slightly camphor-like, with an earthiness that grounds a blend without weighing it down. It works as a steady presence in the middle of a composition, the note that makes everything feel more substantial.

Lovage is one of the great forgotten plants of the English herb garden. Tall, robust, deeply rooted, with a complex scent that sits somewhere between celery, parsley and something altogether its own. It was a staple of monastery and physic gardens for centuries and has never entirely disappeared from the English countryside, even if it has been largely forgotten by mainstream gardening.

The oil is deep and distinctive, a base note that adds genuine complexity and a certain wildness to a blend. It is not for the faint-hearted. Used carefully it grounds a composition and gives it depth that softer oils cannot provide.

This is the oil we are growing ourselves. Slowly. Deliberately. With our own hands.

Scented pelargoniums arrived in England from South Africa in the late seventeenth century, brought by Dutch traders returning from the Cape of Good Hope. They became treasured plants in English glasshouses and cottage windows, their fragrant leaves releasing extraordinary scent at the slightest touch. The Victorians adored them. Once no tussie mussie was considered complete without a sprig of scented pelargonium foliage woven through it.

Our citrus varieties, Prince of Orange, Orange Fizz and Mabel Grey, produce leaves with a warm, bright, orange-forward scent that is unlike anything else grown in English soil. It is not sharp like lemon or sweet like orange blossom. It is something in between: warm citrus with a green botanical depth that is entirely its own. Radiant and complex. The note that English aromatherapy has been missing.

We are currently propagating our stock from cuttings taken in our Wiltshire conservatory. In time these plants will produce our own English-grown and distilled pelargonium oil. A citrus note grown here, in English soil, by our own hands. It will take years. It will be worth it.