Duchess fills her poisoned garden with coca, poppies and strychnine

[emad]

Independent
By Ian Herbert, North of England Correspondent
01 March 2005


A spooky cloud of mist wafted through borders planted with strychnine, cannabis, devil's eye, stinking nightshade and mandrake which, legend has it, emits an ear-piercing scream when uprooted, and begins to sweat blood.

No wonder the constabulary was so keen to enforce the "no cuttings" policy yesterday when Britain's newest public garden was opened.

The Duchess of Northumberland's £400,000 Poison Garden, which needed a Home Office licence to reach fruition, also includes shrubs so dreadful designers suggested growing some of them in cages.

The dell, at Alnwick Castle, Northumberland, is designed to tap our fascination with the plants that cannot be touched, and to educate on the dangers of species such as poppies, magic mushrooms, coca (the source of cocaine) and castor oil plants used to produce the deadly nerve agent ricin.

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/environment/story.jsp?story=615726

[disillusioned1]

1. Castor oil plants

I grow them every year from seeds, for a natural privacy screen. They grow quickly. Here's an example:

[emad]

2. What are you feeding them on? Mine are a quarter of that size!

And they get chickenshit manure liquid feed once a month....

[disillusioned1]

5. That's not a pic of mine, it's a google image, but

my plants grow to 15'. My sunflowers are nearly that tall too.

We have been turning over leaves in our garden for 12 years. The soil is black now, it used to be nearly all sand. I don't use any kind of fertilizer at all.

I start them in the house around March 15th, take them outside June 1st, plant in the ground on June 15th. By first frost in October, they're towering.

It took a few seasons for me to get it just right.

[emad]

6. The secret's in the leaf-mold then? Must try a bit of that, must be

less smelly than the chicken stuff....

[disillusioned1]

7. It's definitely the leaves - organic matter n/t

[emad]

3. dupe , sorry

[DBoon]

4. They are weeds here in SoCal

lots of terrorists around, I assume.

[DS1]

8. Sounds like a place where "Lord British" would picnic

;-)