Interesting Garden story.

[Guest guest]

I hope no one minds if I share this with you. It was originally on another

list that I mostly lurk in.

 

http://www.kvue.com/sharedcontent/ptech/weblog2/042804ccdrptechweblog.172f72

e9d.html

 

Poison Garden to open in England

 

April 28, 2004

By Sheila Lennon / The Providence (R.I.) Journal

7:10 p.m. Wednesday

 

Duchess plans a wicked cool poison garden:

 

    Provided that a duchess can see eye-to-eye with the Home Office on

growing cannabis, strychnine and cocaine, Britain is about to get the most

venomous and hallucinogenic garden it has ever seen.

 

    Harking back to medieval times, but with a toxic arsenal that a witch or

apothecary could only dream of, the project includes shrubs and creepers so

potentially nasty that the designers have suggested growing some of them in

cages.

 

    Visitors will be kept at a distance from the flowerbeds, with marked

boundaries and supervisors enforcing a no-touching policy.

 

    The dell at Alnwick Castle in Northumberland will lie under a perpetual

miasma of " deliberately spooky " mist, enlivened by a copper snake rearing

from a grotto and hissing vapour, triggered by sensors as visitors creep

past.

 

    " It should be quite an experience, " said Caroline Holmes, the garden's

poison plant consultant, who takes a gleeful relish in her subject.

 

    " The plants will be fascinating. Henbane (pictured at right), for

instance, has the most evil-looking flowers, and mandrake grows in a

distinctly sinister fashion. "

 

    Due to open in August, the Poison Garden is the latest part of Alnwick

Gardens, a £42m extravaganza on the estate of the Duke and Duchess of

Northumberland.

 

    Although originally scoffed at by many conventional gardening experts,

the terraced cascades, labyrinth and £3.3m treehouse village, which is

currently being built, have become a big attraction.

 

What a wonderfully gothic idea -- it smacks of Rapunzel's bad witch and a

host of dark forests.

 

There's a short list of " bad " plants, too. " Poisonous " may not be accurate

description of all these posies. Among the plants: catnip. We know why that

might need a cage.

 

Merrie

 

Merrily Yours,

Merriebell

http://www.fatcatcandleco.com

Now pouring under the Waxing Moon