The Duchess of Northumberland’s controversial poison garden has been officially opened. Cannabis, opium poppies, magic mushrooms and coca – the source of cocaine – all feature at the centuries-old Alnwick Garden. The Home Office granted the Alnwick Garden Trust permission to grow the plants late last year. Poisonous foxglove, tobacco and wild lettuce, which can […]
Miscellaneous
Cobrahead weeder
I received a Cobrahead weeder probably a year ago and have been meaning to blog it ever since. It’s the perfect multi-purpose hand tool – or, as the website describes it: “The Cobra Head precision weeder and cultivator is the closest thing to a universal garden tool. Its blade is a steel fingernail™ that becomes […]
I love grass
If she was a gardener, Barbarella would probably have had a grass chair. Grow your own! Or buy a kit from Lazy Bone UK.
Books
I was inspired to start a list of novels gardeners might like (and perhaps, gardening books bookworms might like?) by Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca, the so-called “gothic romance” that won the Anthony Award for Best Novel of the Century. The descriptions of Manderley, the estate that is just as much a central protangonist as the […]
Roots of a gardener: How my childhood sowed the seeds of my passion for gardening
My mother is an avid gardener. I grew up under her tutelage, assigned the gardening tasks greater suited to smaller, more pliable bodies. She would tempt me into the garden with entreaties to feel the softness of the lamb’s ear and to smell the newly opened buds of the mock orange. Then, before I realized […]