My favorite dewdrop-edged plant has always been Lady's Mantle (Alchemilla species) and I always try to plant one near the door where I will see it in the morning. Just this year have I had occasion to see the jewels of the Jewelweed (Impatiens capensis). This common plant pops up just all over the place around my house. With its hollow juicy stems we always think of it as being a swamp-loving plant and indeed it thrives in all the soggy spots above the underground springs that subway around beneath my lawn. But it also emerges right between stone wall stones and in dry slopey places where it wilts without enough water and perks right up again with the least bit of moisture.It keeps company with the daylilies next to the porch swing and there I saw it creating its 'jewels' long before the morning dew touched anything. As a matter of fact it was just at dusk. It was as though the edges of the leaves were just oozing diamonds. Now naturally I just had to taste one, and it was astonishingly sweet, so it was only a slight surprise to see the hummingbirds making daily visits to each and every orange flower.
I just love the idea of trendy, yuppie 'hummingbird gardens'. Oh please, give them what they want - Mulleins to make nests from and Jewelweed for nectar. Very trendy indeed.
Jewelweed is best known as a preventative and aid for poison ivy rashes and it is probably the most important of my Five Buddies in a Blender for that purpose. The stems and leaves can be gathered at their juicy best, buzzed around in a blender with just a little water and frozen in well-labelled ice cube trays to be rubbed over poison ivy rashes for itch-relief and healing. I have never seen a method other than freezing that properly preserves its virtues. It is also listed in a number of places to be used for bee stings and fungal dermatitis, and simply crushing a juicy stem on exposed skin can do a fine job in preventing poison ivy rashes from even beginning.
One of the common names for Jewelweed is 'Touch-me-not' owing to its seed pods that look for all the world like liliputian cucumbers that explode when brushed against or touched at the tips. Setting them off by the zillions by running one's arm through the entire stand or carefully trying to carry one around without explosion was a cure for boredom while waiting for the schoolbus in years past. Successfully handing an unexploded one to the busdriver got you extra points. This is what they have most in common with the Impatiens we grow in shady gardens. Snuffle around in your flowerbed in early fall, you'll find plump, exploding Impatiens seedpods (makes gathering your own seeds a REAL challenge!) Little did we know back at the bus stop that the raw seeds of the Jewelweed are quite edible (if you can catch them!).
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