Feverfew is a cooling, calming reliever. It's also known as Medieval aspirin! This plant is super easy to grow, provides great medicine, and makes us smile with its cute, daisy-like flowers. It will perform for you faithfully season after season with beauty and effective herbal relief. (Tanacetum parthenium)
Why We Love It
Here are some of the reasons why we love Feverfew...
1) COOLING - Feverfew is the herb you want to reach for when you're feeling hot. It gets its name from its ability to lower fevers.
2) CALMING - Feverfew helps to calm inflammation in the body. It has a special affinity for the lungs, stomach, and liver.
3) RELIEVER - Feverfew has become famous as a headache preventative and reliever. The dosage used in research is eating 2 leaves per day.
How to Grow It
| SUN | FULL OR PART SUN |
| MOISTURE | LOVES MOIST, WELL-DRAINED SOIL |
| GROWING ZONES | USDA 5-9 (Not sure? Find your growing zone here) |
| SIZE | 2-3 feet tall and wide |
| PRO TIP |
Feverfew produces a ton of seeds, so if you don't want it to pop up in other parts of your garden, trim off the flower heads before the seed matures. Winter Sowing is the easiest way to start these seeds. Here's a seed-starting tutorial for you. You won't believe how easy it is! |
How to Harvest and Use It
You can harvest the leaves and flowers of feverfew anytime. For headache treatment and prevention, the dosage used in the first research study was 2 leaves daily.
The leaves and flowers can be made into a tea or tincture. The flowers are a great insect repellant. You can tincture the flowers and use as a bug spray and also as a balm to soothe bug bites.
For those of you who love research, here's a great summary of the medical literature on feverfew's benefits:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3210009/pdf/PRev-5-103.pdf
Here's a great post about feverfew's benefits and dosage from Lesley Tierra: https://planetherbs.com/blogs/lesleys-blog/feverfew-and-chrysanthemum/
Precautions: Don't use during pregnancy. Best not to use while using blood-thinning medications. Those with an allergy to ragweed may have sensitivity to feverfew.