The Croftless Crofter: September 12 2024
Autumn has well and truly arrived and it is possibly even more welcome than usual given the lack of summer we seem to have had.
It feels like a relief to stop expecting or hoping that sunshine and warmth might come and to accept the nights drawing in and the misty mornings.
The bracken has changed colour and is beginning to bow down, the first leaves are turning, the rowan trees are dripping with berries, the hedgerows are filled with ripe brambles and the hills are purple with heather.
Heather is such an iconic Scottish flower and does so well on our peaty, acidic, wet and shallow soils, and is abundant here on crofts, moors and mountains across the region.
While most of our heather is purple, there is the occasional white flower: perhaps its rarity contributes to the lucky properties associated with it.
Myths around white heather include it only growing where no blood has been shed, perhaps accounting for its good luck charm properties when worn to battle by clans and soldiers.
On a less whimsical note, heather has been made use of here in Scotland for many practical purposes too.
It has been used in mattresses and beds, providing a bouncy and sweet smelling place to slumber. It has also been used as thatching materials for roofs and is often used in green or living roofs today.
Heather is traditionally used to make brooms and brushes, too, as well as the stalks and flowers boiled with cloth to create natural dyes.
There are various cosmetic and medicinal uses for heather, with it often included in soaps, shampoos and aromatherapy products, as well as culinary purposes from teas to brewed in ales.
It is not just people who enjoy heather either, the honey made by bees who have been foraging on heather flowers is one of the most delicious.
Heather was a key part of one of my favourite crofting produce items I made to sell in our little shop on Rum.
I gathered heather, pine cones and other robust flora from around the croft to dry out and preserve with oris root and natural essential oils to create pot pourri.
Sold in small bags adored with tartan ribbon and labelled as ‘Capture from the Isle of Rum’, I sold many bags to people who took a tiny piece of our croft away with them to place in decorative bowls in their own homes to remind them of the wild corner of the Highlands where this beautiful flower grew.
As the hills turn purple for another autumn, I find myself catching glimpses and starting to sing about ‘wild mountain thyme and blooming heather’ and breathing deep the scent of that woody, piney, subtle smell of the highland heather as we say goodbye to another summer.
What is your favourite use of heather?
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