Soapwort

Description

Soapwort is a perennial herbaceous plant once cultivated for its characteristic cleansing properties, and appreciated today for its flowers. It cannot be grown indoors.

Stem

The stems of soapwort are creeping, but the flowering stalks rise quite erect from them. Mountain soapwort, very well suited to rock gardens, has prostrate stems covered with down.

Leaves

The leaves of lemon verbena grow in threes along the stem, are long, lance-shaped, marked by a deep central vein, are rough to the touch.

Flowers

The pretty flowers of soapwort, delicately scented of fruit, are a lovely pink, more rarely white, and open at the top of the stalks in summer; those of mountain soapwort, also known as little soapwort, are tiny, but have a more intense colour.

Exposure

Soapwort grows in half-shade or in sun depending on the variety to which it belongs.

Propagation

This plant is usually slow to put out its buds, so it is necessary, at the end of a harsh winter, do not give up hope that it will sprout, but keep on watering and feeding it, because, even if much of the foliage has been damaged by frost, the roots have most probably survived.

Growth

If care is taken to remove the withered inflorescences, a second flowering will be obtained; in the taller varieties the stalks should be supported with stakes. In autumn it is good to cut the stems back hard.

Harvesting

Autumn is the most suitable period for harvesting the various parts of the plant.

Storage

The method of preservation used is drying: unfortunately the flowers lose part of their delightful scent (vaguely reminiscent of that of carnations, to whose family soapwort belongs) and the leaves part of their cleansing power; the roots, being toxic, should never be used for internal remedies, but only for external use.

Beauty

A decoction of soapwort, after being filtered, can be used as a strengthening shampoo for brittle, damaged hair or to cleanse delicate skin: there is no need to worry if it does not produce much lather, it is not by the amount of lather that the quality of a cleanser should be judged.

Health

Skin affected by acne or psoriasis is rinsed with soapwort decoction.

Curiosity

This herb has been cultivated since the Middle Ages for its high content of saponin, a substance present in the stalks, the leaves and above all the roots, thanks to which it exerts its delicate but deep cleansing power. A decoction of soapwort, obtained by boiling the various parts of the plant in rainwater, is very well suited to restoring the splendour of antique fabrics whose colours have been dulled by dust and time.