Aromatic Adventures

I haven't posted for a while as for the last 6 months I have either been preparing to move, moving or unpacking. I managed to bring most of my precious aromatic plants with me from the warmer North Island to the colder South Island and now winter is coming (in the best Game of Thrones way) I will have to be vigilant with them to make sure frost doesn't get to them. I had transferred most to pots before hand and let them harden up for a few months and had a nervous wait for 2 weeks until they arrived by road after being cooped up in a shipping container the whole time. I had invested in soil hydration crystals and had watered them throughly everyday before hand and packed then up with wet newspaper as well.  They made it without any casualties- a finger lime, some lemon myrtles, osmanthuses (or is that osmanthii?), Rosa damascenas, a bergamot, yuzus, a hawthorn and a couple of other special roses. I sold off heaps of others to pay for the shipping. Since arriving at my new plac...

Here you will find links to some of my resources I have written or prepared. Please acknowledge me Wendy Maddocks and Aromatic Adventures as the owner of copyright for my own material. Other published articles from other sources are also shared - again please acknowledge appropriately. If you are interested in receiving more information please check out my learning opportunities on my website here . Bounty From Down Under- presentation at Aromatica 2015 Journey to the Turkish Rose Fields 2011 GCMS South Island Manuka as supplied by Estate Aromatics GCMS West Coast SI Manuka Aromatic Presentation- presented multiple times in several countries Manuka and Kanuka Article written by Wendy Good Gargling 2008 Presentation (Doctoral Research) Kanuka and Manuka Research Article

Here in NZ winter citrus grow in abundance in my garden. One citrus I planted 4 years ago in my converted paddock is 'Lemonade", which is a hybrid citrus. I t is a cross between a lemon and a sweet mandarin (Citrus limon x. reticualta).  Some authors refer to it as C. limon x sinensis (here) It is a popular citrus in NZ and in Queensland. This is the first year I have had an abundance of fruit. We use the juice to make either home-made lemonade or a version of lemoncello which we enjoy over ice. T his is the first time I have been able to distil the fruit for hydrosols. In aromatherapy most citrus fruits are expellar pressed after squeezing for juice. the essential oil is present in little oil sacs just under the rind- clearly visible here on the photo of the orange. Some citrus are steam distilled for essential oils which helps minimise phototoxicity. Essential oils are also produced from blossom (orange blossom or neroli) and the leaves and twigs (petitgrain). Howe...

So after 4 weeks of consecutive flowering of my osmanthus bushes, starting at one of the line and working their way down (each bush flowering after the other one), I have harvested the last of the usable blossoms for a final distillation. With the previous experimental distillations I added a base aromatic to try and bind the fragrance together. this one I wanted to keep very light and fresh, in memory of the beautiful autumn we are experiencing in Palmerston North. So the hydrosol base was a commercial lemon verbena (which did not have the essential oil removed). In to the still went the osmanthus flowers and the last of the heavily fragrant lemon blossoms. I now have around 500 ml of lovely (slightly cloudy) light, citrus and floral hydrosol just for me to enjoy! I hope you have enjoyed my osmanthus experimentations- hydro-distilling is such a lovely pastime and takes very little effort and even with only small amounts of aromatics you can create something quite bespoke. ...

I often co distil where I use a commercially produced hydrosol as a base (usually lemon geranium or lavender) and redistil with fragrant plant materials. I often to this when I don't have enough of the raw material to make a decent single distillation. For this experiment I decided to mix it up totally to try and create something completely different. As with all of my distillations I do not attempt to remove any of the essential oil which may be present. I only use a small copper alembic still (3 litre). For this complete fragrance experience I first prepared the base hydrosol, using lemon geranium hydrosol from a commercial distillation and re distilled this by itself (2 litres hydrosol to obtain 1 litre more concentrated hydrosol). If you are not familiar with lemon geranium it has a sweet, honey like quality to the aroma. In to this I added the following my garden: osmanthus blossoms lemon blossom rose geranium leaves (young tips only) dried Rosa damascena blossom fr...