So Succulent Gardens

Sweetgrass is used in prayer, smudging, and purifying ceremonies and is regarded as a sacred plant by the Native Americans.  It is not well known that it was also sacred to early Europeans and is still used in churches on festival days. Sweet-grass aroma is strong only when moistened or burned. As the grass dries the fragrance intensifies. When burned it does not produce an open flame but smolders. Just as the sweet scent is attractive to people, it is also attractive to good spirits. Native Americans often burned the grass at the beginning of a prayer or to attract positive energies. A tea is brewed by Native Americans for coughs, sore throats, chafing and venereal infections. It is warned that because the roots contain coumarin that it may be considered carcinogenic.

The botanical latin name Hierochloë translates from Greek as sacred (hieros) and grass (chloë) Native Americans  call sweetgrass the “grass that never dies.” Even when it is cut, it retains its fragrance and spirit.
Today, sweetgrass is used inter-tribally throughout the United States.
Sweetgrass was used ceremonially by many tribes, including the Omaha, Ponca, Kiowa, Dakota, Lakota, Blackfeet, Cheyenne, Pawnee, and Winnebago. The Cheyenne, Blackfeet, and Lakota use sweetgrass in the Sun Dance.   Sweetgrass symbolizes life’s growth for the Cheyenne.
Sweetgrass used as perfumery of the Blackfeet, who braided it and kept it with their clothes like a sachet or carried it in small bags. Blackfeet women also used it as a hair rinse for shine and the men drank the tea to treat VD.  

Among the Chippewa, sweetgrass was used as an incense or smudge in ceremony, as a spiritual medicine, and in basketweaving. The use of incense is more characteristic of the Plains Indians than of the Algonquian tribes. “Men would smudge before hunting to purify body and spirit. Medicine men kept sweetgrass in the bag with their medicinal roots and herbs. Strands of sweetgrass were made into coiled and tied with strands of string to create baskets.

Sweetgrass is extremely easy to grow and enjoys a well drain but lots of compost.   They spread by underground rhizomes, and you can harvest once to twice a year. 

This plant from the BLOSSOM FARM cannot be shipped to Washingtion, Oregon, California or Arizona due to there state regulations on grasses.

Source:   U.S. Department of Agriculture.