Note: I called this a green witch spell because it calls for caring for a living plant. That means providing it with the correct levels of light and water for its care. You do not have to call yourself a Green Witch to use this spell. You do, on the other hand, need to be able to care for a plant. Be advised.
Note: There are a lot of parts to this spell. This isn’t the kind of thing that should be undertaken lightly or can be accomplished, in most cases, in a single weekend. This is by design. Be aware that in assembling the items to complete this spell, you have begun the action of casting it. You are creating a living ward that could live for upwards of ten or twenty years or more – treat it with the reverence it deserves.
This spell is designed to create a living plant ward tl protect you and your environment. It uses a combination of candle magic (as an initial charge for the spell) and green magic to power the spell. I also suggest the use of additional elements such as bindrunes, sigils, or intention papers but they are not necessary. As always with my spells, I expect you to bring your own magic to the table here – how you empower this spell should be determined by how you cast magic.
I will also include some sections on how to interact with your plant ward – they are just that, suggestions. Take what resonates with you and leave the rest.
To Cast This Spell You Will Need:
1 Jar Candle appropriate in size to use as a cachepot (3″, 4″, 5″ or more)
Oils or herbs to anoint your candle (optional)
A paint pen or other permanent marker (optional but recommended)
A plant (I suggest one that you associate with protection magic)
A pot with drainage holes that will fit into your cachepot
Soil, Water, and Sunlight to care for your Plant Ward
The goal of this spell is to prepare a vessel and imbue it with protective energy and then to permanently home a plant in it to create a living ward that you feed with water regularly. Steps 1 and 2 of this spell can be performed congruently or separately. They are interrelated – the size of your plant will dictate the size of your cachepot/candle, so keep this in mind during your choosing process. If you choose a cachepot that is too small for your plant, you will need to transplant it out quickly, defeating this process. If you choose a cachepot that is too large for your plant, you risk root rot. As you might imagine, a dead plant is not an effective ward.
1 – Choose Your Protective Plant Ward
Ultimately, your plant choice is up to you. There are, however, some things that I think it is important to keep in mind when choosing a plant for a spell like this. The first is that we need to keep this plant alive so choosing a relatively “easy” plant is a good starting place. You know how much time and care you like to put into your plants, now think about this also as the time and care that you want to put into your wards. If you want to maintain your wards more often, you may wish to choose a plant that is more thirsty or time-consuming. If you are more of a set-it-and-forget-it type of magic user, something more low-key may be more your style.
The second thing is that your plant needs to be able to grow effectively in your environment. I would lean towards choosing a plant that you have grown before in your current living space as you will know, for sure, that it is a good fit and will thrive in your home.
Things like rose bushes and herbs have a lot of protective properties but can be difficult to grow in a home environment. I suggest thinking about what protection means to you – there are many ways that plants can be protective (bark, thorns, poisonous leaves, vines that strangle…) besides the obvious protection associations in That Big Green Book.
Keep in mind that the size of the plant in its mature form will come into play here. Some plants can be continually divided to remain in the same pot for a long time while others will outgrow their homes in 1-2 years. A plant that can stay in its cachepot for at least a couple of years – either through the slowness of its growth, division, or because it prefers to be a bit snug in its home – is preferred for this type of spell.
Plants can be expensive but this step doesn’t have to be! Check your local plant groups for free plants or propagate an existing plant you already own. I would suggest that the plant become fully acclimated to your environment before you actually use it in this spell.
2 – Choose You Candle/Cachepot
Once you know what type of plant you want to grow as a ward, it is time to find yourself a vessel to house your ward. Here we are looking for a candle in a pretty jar* that you like enough to keep as a decoration. You may have one in your house already! The one condition is that whatever sized plant you have chosen should be able to fit inside your candle jar as a cachepot. It doesn’t have to fit exactly (there’s a possibility here of choosing a large cachepot to give your plant ward space to be repotted and grow!) but you should be able to comfortably sit your plant into the candle jar.
From there, the choices are very much up to you and virtually endless. You can choose based on a color association that you have with protection magic, or maybe it is the scent of the candle that makes you think of protection here. I suggest choosing a scent that you enjoy (or scentless altogether) as you are going to burn this candle out before we use it as a home for your new plant.
If you make your own candles, there is some amazing room here to further your own magic by choosing an appropriate vessel and then making a protection candle to go inside of it.
Candles, especially bigger jar candles, can be quite expensive. This isn’t about going out and spending a lot of money here (though you can, of course, if you wish). You can often find unburned candles in thrift shops or at discount stores of all kinds.
*If ascetics aren’t important to you, you can skip this step.
3 – Create Your Protection Vessel
Now that you have chosen a vessel, we want to imbue it with the energy of protection. This is basic candle magic 101 and can be done in many different ways. Many people will start by cleansing the candle with their preferred methods. Many people like to write their intentions or sigils/bindrunes/magic symbols onto the candle – you can write all around the outside of the candle to create your own art effect or stick to the bottom of the candle to be more discreet. You want to use a permanent marker that won’t wash off if at all possible.
Some people will meditate with the candle, send their power into it, or imbue it with another energy source such as the sun, moon, or Reiki. Many people dress their candles with magical oils, protective powders, or gemstones.
Do what works for you and your practice. If you need a very basic protective spell, you can draw the Algiz rune on the bottom of your candle, anoint it with olive oil, and add a couple of pieces of finely ground rosemary to the edge of the candle (away from the wick). Please practice fire safety here.
4 – Burn Your Candle
Ultimately, I feel that the goal of this candle burn should be to burn your candle out as efficiently as possible to minimize soot stains on the jar and to burn as much of the wax as possible. To do this requires some candle tending. Generally, to burn a jar candle down completely you need to wait until the top layer of wax has melted before you extinguish it on each burn. The amount of time that will take is determined by a ton of factors: the temperature, the type of wax, the number of wicks, the type of wicks, airflow, and other things as well. You may not be able to let your candle burn for that long with every lighting, but I suggest at least attempting to.
There’s a lot of additional magic that you could add to this step. You could speak words of protection over your candle as you light it. You could light it once a week on a Tuesday in the hour of Mars. You could light it every day for a number of days that is magically significant to you. You could dedicate the candle to a protective force that you work with. Or burn it on a protection altar. You could write a petition paper and place it under the candle while it is burning.
I personally think that including your plant in the spell here is very useful for creating a connection – I would keep my plant near the burning candle as the spell progressed to strengthen the connection between the plant and the energy of the candle burn that fuels the spell.
Continue with this step until your candle has completely burned out. From here you want to clean out your vessel of any remaining wax, soot, or other leftovers from your candle burn. Take care to try not to remove any protection symbols on the jar, but things happen. It’s okay to go back over and redraw your protection sigils if you have to here.
5 – Put Your Plant into its New Home
Note that I do not say PLANT your plant into its new home. We are using the candle jar here as a CACHE POT, not the direct home of your houseplant. This is because your houseplant likes to have drainage holes and the candle jar has none.
As you do this, you might wish to talk with your plant about how and why you are putting it into its new home. This is when, in my practice, I would Name the plant if I had not discovered its name prior. Giving a plant a name creates a connection between the spirit of that exact plant and you; it also gives you a nice way of addressing the spirit of the plant! (if you don’t do spirit work, feel free to skip this step) I like to tell my plants that I am enlisting them in the protection spell that I have cast and asking their permission.
Place your plant in a place where it will get its needs met and watch it grow! Congratulations, you have just made yourself a living ward.
6 – Care For Your Living Ward
Properly caring for your plant wards is an important part of this spell and is a type of repetitive magical focus. The goal is to focus on your plant as it grows and check up on its needs. This allows you to feed your spell as you water your plant and the growth of the plant feeds the ward itself. Forge a connection to your plant as you care for it – think about its growth, think about the magic that you imbued into the creation of the ward, and think about the candle burning that fueled the spell! Depending on your sensitivities, you may be able to “feel” the ward.
Over time, you may want to burn additional candles to add power to your living ward. You can do so by anointing the candles in the same way that you did your original (with the same symbols, oils, and herbs) and burning it close by to your plant. Depending on your practice, you may also be able to change the ward with sunlight, moonlight, or words of power. Use what you are good at here!
It is wise to remember that this is still warding/protection magic so I would refrain from telling people about your ward or sharing photos of it on social media.
7 – Troubleshooting this Spell
Eventually, depending on your plant ward, your plant may outgrow the container that this spell was built for. Consider this to be a great success! You choose to continue to work with this plant by transplanting the plant into a larger pot, finding a new vessel, and casting the spell again – or -by finding a new plant sized small enough to fit into your current vessel. You may be able to divide your plant and keep a part of it for your spell while “retiring” the rest. (think about the power of continually dividing a pothos and each time creating ANOTHER living plant ward that you put in a different space in your house…)
What to do if your plant ward dies or is not doing well: This happens to the best of us. Some people might consider a plant ward dying to be a sign that something magically is amis in your environment. You need to decide for yourself if that makes sense to you. I would consider what is going wrong with your plant – have you been under or over-watering it? Is it dying because it’s too rootbound and needs to be repotted? Does it have a plant pest? Did it scorch in direct sunlight?
You not caring for your plant properly is almost never going to be a sign that somebody else is messing with you. But if your plant ward is suddenly dying for no reason (and you’ve thoroughly checked the reasons) – do some divination on it, please. Also, unpot your plant and check the roots because that’s always the best practice.
If you need to move house, you will need to decide what to do with your plant ward. If the ward is more designed around protecting you as a person, it may be able to move to your new place. If it is designed around protecting your space, it should probably be recast in the new location. In that case, I would choose a new jar candle and cast the spell anew. When in doubt, I suggest casting a new spell.
8 – Variations on a Theme
Though this spell is written to create a protective ward, it can be altered easily to fit most other long-term goals. You could use a plant associated with tranquility to make your space more peaceful, as an example. I suggest sticking to magical goals that affect your environment or your person here. The reason for this is that I believe that this spell works because you and your plants share the air in your house – you breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide and your plants “breathe” in carbon dioxide and “breathe” out air. If your belief system of how magic works differently, your experience may vary.
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