When a foreigner comes to Herzegovina, it is often that the first question he asks goes like this: „What characterises Herzegovina best?“ The answer given by us Herzegovinians is always the same: Herzegovinian Sun! Usually after that answer, nothing is clear to the foreigner until he spends few days in Herzegovina and then the sense of our answer occurs by itself, regardless of the current season.
Likewise, we in Ardia are often asked what characterises Ardia’s products, something that would connect them all, something like a shared main ingredient; and we always have the same answer: Herzegovinian Sun! Although this is the story about our calendula, we must not get around our main ingredient „the Sun“ because it is to be „blamed“ that this year our calendula blossoms from the end of February until today. A game between the sun and the calendula shall, apparently, last for the whole year because neither of them shows any signs of tiredness this season.
Why do we use calendula most often as one of the ingredients in Ardia’s products?
Although there are records that the calendula was used already in the ancient times for the whole series of dermal problems, it gained its medical popularity during the American Civil War. It was used as the best natural cicatrizant (an agent for healing up of wounds) in process of the treatment of injuries, burns, bedsore wounds, inflamed veins, etc. The calendula ointment was later also the unavoidable part of the contents of the medicinal bag of the medical orderlies and doctors in the First and the Second World War.
Our mothers and grandmothers take credit for a wide cosmetic use of calendula as the medical herbs. They used to make the balsam out of calendula because it helps at almost all dermal problems, especially at little children (diaper and any other rash), as well as in the process of the treatment of acnes, care of dry skin, skin inflammations, etc.
The preparation of a tea out of calendula is also known. It is used for problems with liver, kidneys and urinary tract, in process of the treatment of herpes and hepatitis, diarrhoea, intestinal inflammation, stomach cramps and constipation. It also helps with menstrual cramps, as well as for the treatment of virus and bacterial urinary infections. Recently, the doctors increasingly prescribe the tea of calendula petals for treatment of cholesterol. We could write for days about therapeutic richness of this plant. There’s the answer why we in Ardia use calendula as the unavoidable ingredient.
The calendula that we use is exclusively organic, which means that we cultivate it far away from urban areas and traffic roads, without using artificial fertilisers, insecticides and herbicides. A whole process of cultivation, starting from planting through weeding to the picking of flowers, is done manually with no machines.
Let’s get back now to the sun and calendula. Why are they inseparable?
There are several reasons for that. Let’s say, the first one is that the flowers are picked at „the highest sun“ because its therapeutic properties are the greatest at that time of the day. The interesting thing with these flowers is that they are open during the daylight and in their full blossom, and they are closed during the night and foggy and cloudy weather. Our grandmothers called this plant “a rain messenger” because if the flowers do not open in the early morning hours, then it is the sign of the rain. They also say that the bees will not fly down to every calendula, but only to the one that is natural that is not treated with artificial derivatives. That is why we have decided before picking flowers to share with you the dance between the sun, calendula and bees.
While we were preparing to pick flowers, the Sun composed the song with its rays at which the worker-bees were dancing on the calendula flowers as if they competed among themselves which one of them would look more like sun that filled them with its colours. Every flower was like the sun in the mirror, and the bees with their dance from one flower to another acted as if they were speaking that exactly that flower had been the one at which the most beautiful bees had flown down. We have managed to capture that game between the Sun, calendula and spirited bees in the photographs from our album and short slide show and, of course, to convert later that whole theatrical play of nature into our Ardia products.
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