chaste tree | The Wild Librarian

History of The Chaste Tree

Chaste Tree has an ancient history, with its use referenced in literature and poetry. It is still used today in herbal medicine practices.

In a medieval poem The Floure and the Leafe which was written anonymously in Middle English, a beautiful lady in white wears a crown of Vitex agnus:

“On her head, of leves fresh and grene,
So wele wrought, and so mervelously,
That it was a noble sight to sene.
Some of laurer, and some ful pleasantly
Had chapelets of woodbind, and sadly
Some of Agnus castus were also
Chapelets fresh. ”

According to its effect on the human body, if Chaucer’s characters for example, had ingested this herb more, let’s just say that The Canterbury Tales would certainly have less rudey-bits and rumpy-pumpy! This herb could have saved me from SO MUCH blushing as a Medieval Literature student when having to read Chaucer aloud!

Harvesting Vitex agnus

I have written about this annual task before because of how seasonal the task feels as a ritual. I only began to value it in this way, as a recurring seasonal task after spending six months with my head in a permaculture course. I discovered that the actual yield is not about measuring the yield of wood…which is quite small.

It’s more about connection to the cycle of seasons. Thinking about the ancient history of this tree, valued enough to be in poem and story. A sensory trigger from the feel and scent of the beautiful wood.

You can cut Vitex down to ground level and you can grow it as a single trunk tree or shrub.

The Wood

What I love about this task is the scent of this wood. It is really unique and hard to describe. It reminds me of patchouli wood perhaps mixed with pine but far more distinct. When dried it retains its scent and burns sweetly.

The Floure

Stunning blooms of Vitex agnus

The white spikes of summer flowers are very similar to Buddleia and attract many butterflies, bees and hover flies. I’ve observed that native Australian blue-banded bees seem to find the white flowers fascinating, even though their preference is for blue hues.

Vitex agnus is just one of those quiet plants that I don’t see often, but is a special, brilliant and appreciated part of my small permaculture inspired garden.

Removing spindly flower tops

The start of a little scented stick pile which becomes a small armful.

The first phase, now ready for each branch to be taken.

It’s easy to fall into a yearning for more space when you have your head in permaculture thinking, yet with just a backyard sized space to play out your zones. When I see field-sized rows of vegetable beds I have to admit, sometimes my thoughts stray to wishing I had vast fields to lay down beds for sprawling pumpkins, or wander through my own orchard! If only I had a small forest to harvest fallen wood…or room for ducks and goats again…

These aren’t useful threads of thoughts though. So, here’s just one example of how I tackle my mind out of the feeling of wanting more growing space. It’s by concentrating on ritual as the yield.

In the past, I was lucky enough to experience having 20 acres and being able to collect fallen branches and twigs after a storm to store as firewood.Now, in a backyard farm, I have young fruit and nut trees, one large lilly pilly shade tree and a long wait for lots of fruit and nut trees to mature.

A few years ago I researched trees and small shrubs that could be used as a harvest for wood on a small scale, for basketry or kindling. This brought me to the Vitex agnus castus, or Chaste Tree. It ticked all the boxes with buddleia like bee-attracting flowers, deciduous in winter and with pliable limbs that could be cut to ground level. This is the white variety and the flowers tower over one of the raised vegetable beds, calling all the bees in the area over to my tomatoes.

The chaste tree dies off in autumn, you can cut the branches to ground level, and quite late into Spring (many people often think the tree is dead) it will suddenly burst into new green life anew and grow even thicker woody branches than the previous year. The branches also have a lovely earthy scent.

Here is the small bunch of wood from last year, dried over summer and ready for use either as kindling or maybe some beginners basketry?

It’s not much is it? It won’t go far this winter. But does that matter? Is the size of yield the achievement?

For me, no.

This is about being in touch with harvesting wood as a ritual, about repeating a seasonal pattern and about that sense of being human in a permaculture system in a managed backyard garden. The ritual is the yield here. This is like a small echo of an ancient wood harvesting management called coppicing, where young forest trees were cut down to the ground to resprout. I’m not encroaching on a forest or the wilderness, so it’s a good rhythm for this space to harvest the long bare branches each winter. It’s a way to be in touch with a rhythm of taking from nature in a way that allows the tree to regrow even more vigorously, with even more blooms offered up to pollen craving bees through Summer.

There is a huge sense of worth in that little bundle of sticks and knowing that the next season will yield a slightly thicker little bundle of sticks.

If you have any other suggestions for plants and small trees that allow a small yield of wood like this, would love to hear about them.

sharing wild spells of magic found in nature, books, stories, backyard farming, ecology, permaculture

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Tag Archives: chaste tree

The turn of the year

History of The Chaste Tree

Harvesting Vitex agnus

The Wood

The Floure

Ritual as yield

sharing wild spells of magic found in nature, books, stories, backyard farming, ecology, permaculture