I Heart Cottonwood

It’s that time of year again, dreading winter storms, but also seeing the silver lining of those storm clouds.  Firewood usually comes to mind when trees succumb to the winter onslaught of Pacific storms, but also these storms are well- timed for Cottonwood (Populus  balsamifera or trichocarpa) bud gathering.  In my area when we have a cold snap, it’s normal to have a silver thaw upon warm-up.  Cottonwood limbs are somewhat brittle and the ice conveniently breaks them off for us.  All we have to do is look for the trees, which aren’t abundant here on the ridge top, we have several, we have to go to water to find them.  For medicinal purposes the buds need to be gathered in winter by February.

A quick trip to Trapper yielded enough buds for a year of salve making.  The sticky brown resin is what we’re looking for.

Can I eat that?  It smells good.

Infusing the buds with olive oil yields an oil that can be used alone or for salve making.  It will keep up to a year in a cool dark place.

My salve making tutorial is posted over at Simple-Green-Frugal Co-op in this post.  You can’t go wrong having this versatile salve in your medicine cabinet.  The scent is heavenly and the healing properties bar none.