The wild yarrow has been leafing out all spring and is finally starting to bud and bloom around our homestead! I have grown to love yarrow so much over the past few years. This beautiful plant is one of the most useful wild, sustainable medicines that I have come to know and respect.

I am looking forward to sharing the season with Yarrow as she continues to bloom and excited about visiting some of our favorite Yarrow patches in the local mountains to harvest flowers and medicine. We are planning on making a surplus of Yarrow tincture this season for medicine, but also because we use it regularly in our oral hygiene and as an insect repellent. But of course Yarrow flowers make wonderful dried and fresh floral arrangements. I may even make some Yarrow beer again this year!

White Yarrow – Achillea millefolium

Life cycle: Perennial / Ease of propagation: Moderate / Hardiness zone: 4-8

Yarrow is a favorite of ours! I have been growing Yarrow before coming to the Pacific Northwest where it is a native and grows wild, thanks to Toby Hemenway’s book Gaia’s Garden. Yarrow truly is a great permaculture plant because there are many ways we can appreciate it. I really enjoy the white flowers that Yarrow puts out all around us here in Oregon in the late summer and she is a pollinator’s favorite! We include Yarrow in our floral arrangements and dried wreaths, but one of the best ways to appreciate Yarrow is right where she grows in the garden or, where nature placed her, in the dappled light of the forest and forest edge.

In the garden Yarrow is a wonderful living mulch as it spreads by its roots and with plenty of water Yarrow will grow abundant fern-like leaves that cover the soil and help hold in moisture. However if medicine is what you are after, hold yourself back from giving the plant much water and Yarrow will develop more of the medicinal essential oils. Yarrow adds a flowing fountain, cascade-like energy and a contrast of texture to many of our other favorite plants. Yarrow’s aroma is distinct as well and I have grown quite fond of it.

For its medicinal uses the entire Yarrow plant can be used: the flower, the leaves, the stalk and the roots are all imbued with Yarrow’s healing properties.

Yarrow flowers make a delicious tea – yarrow tea makes a good stomach tonic. The flavor of the flowers are delicate and unique. Thanks to Stephen Harrod Buhner’s Sacred and Healing Herbal Beers, I have enjoyed brewing and drinking yarrow flower beer.

Yarrow leaves can be added to salads or cooked with your other greens. Yarrow leaves are fairly bitter and will aid with digestion if eaten before a meal. When added in with other foods the bitterness is minimized or disappears.

One of the many ways I appreciate Yarrow is by acknowledging its incredible healing powers for us mammals. Yarrow is a hemostatic and can help heal wounds and stop bleeding both externally and internally. Yarrow’s excellent ability to help heal wounds is hinted in many of its common names: Soldier’s Woundwort, Knight’s Milfoil, Herbe Militaris, Nose Bleed, Carpenter’s Weed, Bloodwort, Staunchweed. Only wild white Yarrow should be used for medicinal use. The Yarrow that has been bred with other colors may not have the same medicinal qualities.

Yarrow is also antiseptic and because it has antibacterial properties its mashed, bruised or chewed leaves can be applied directly to an open wound, deep cut or burn as a poultice and will help to prevent infection, staunch bleeding and aid in the healing process. It can also be infused into a salve or ointment for applying directly to wounds.

Yarrow is an effective menstrual regulator and can help break up stagnant blood or help staunch heavy bleeding. Yarrow infusion can be used externally in a sitz bath to help relieve cramps.

Fresh Yarrow leaves or roots have been chewed on in order to get rid of toothache.

Yarrow leaves were often used to deal with fevers. The hot tea of Yarrow leaves helps to induce perspiration which can break a fever.

Yarrow root is used as an effective local anesthetic.

Susun Weed uses Yarrow tincture to brush her teeth because it is antibacterial and can help to heal any sores or lesions in the mouth and gums before they become problems. Susun Weed also testifies that Yarrow tincture makes an excellent mosquito repellent superior to deet and with no toxicity to us, the only downside being that you have to apply it every half hour or so.

“Yarrow Tea is a good remedy for severe colds, being most useful in the commencement of fevers, and in cases of obstructed perspiration […] It opens the pores freely and purifies the blood, and is recommended in the early stages of children’s colds, and in measles and other eruptive diseases.”
– Maud Grieve, A Modern Herbal

“Yarrow is said to act as a vascular tonic that may be useful for varicosity and various other circulatory diseases.”
-Gregory L. Tilford, Edible and Medicinal Plants of the West

“Yarrow roots are still the traditionally used local anesthetic of many of the western Indians, as revealed by two cases recorded by the Research Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. One involved a Nevada Indian who was suffering acutely from a deep thigh wound in which foreign substances had entered the cut. Fresh, scrubbed yarrow roots were crushed to a soft spongy mass and applied gently to the spot. Within half an hour the anesthetic had so dulled the pain that it was possible to expand and clean the wound. The second concerned a deeply sunk splinter that, following soaking in a solution of yarrow roots, was similarly opened and removed. This was accomplished by members of the family.”
– Bradford Angier, Field Guide to Medicinal Wild Plants

Sowing Instructions

Sow in place ¼ inch deep in early spring. Germination takes 1-3 months. Or sow in pots/flats and keep soil moist until germination. Transplant outside in the summer.