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Photo by : Richard Pegler
" I wondered why so many garden around the world focused on the healing power of plants rather than their power to kill . I felt that most children I be intimate would be more interested in hear how a plant killed , how long it would take you to pop off if you ate it , and how grim and painful the death might be . “-Duchess of Northumberland , on curating the Poison Garden at Alnwick Castle .
photograph mention : Jacqui / Flickr .
Castor bean ( Ricinus communis ) for kidney failure , laburnum ( Laburnum spp ) for coma & froth at the mouth ; Strychnine ( Strychnos nux - vomica ) will induct calamitous convulsions , deadly nightshade ( Atropa belladona ) offers a prelude of hallucination before palsy . These are the sort of plant you ’ll find at thePoison GardenatAlnwick Castlein northern England . Beyond big black gates that warn " These Plants May Kill " and a miasmatic fog , a collection of over 100 botanical assassins & intoxicants is introduced with an incitement : " Do not touch any of the plants , do n’t even smell them . "
Garden docents offer this monition while guide curious audiences through beds of the potent works , which can be divide into some three family . First , there are the narcotic : opium poppy ( Papaver somniferum ) , marijuana , mushrooms , and tobacco . secondly , the legendary , idealistic killers : Henbane ( Hyoscyamus nige ) , the venomous & psychotropic plant whose ancient use was document by Pliny , Hemlock ( Conium maculatum ) , a poison parcel out to condemn prisoner in Greece , include , most famously , Socrates ; and mandrake ( Mandragora officinarum ) , a hallucinogenic plant immortalized by St Thomas Aquinas , Machiavelli , Shakespeare , Ezra Pound , and J.K. Rowling ( one Harry Potter book features a mandrake that screams , a riding habit unremarkably attributed to the glamour beginning ) . These first two category are perhaps not surprising - fabled , verboten , and exotic , they obsess fairy tales , myths , and addiction . However , the third group is shocking in its ubiquity : plant most likely to be in your own garden : foxgloves(Digitalis spp ) , a pretty flower that can be fatal if ingested ; columbine ( Aquilegia spp ) , whose seeded player and root contain cardiogenic toxin ; wild clematis ( Clematis vitalba ) , with its noxious ulcer - stimulate sap .
Some plant life farm behind cages . picture credit : Aaron
Some plant grow behind cages . picture credit : Aaron
With all of its inner gardens , Alnwick Gardens has been call " The Versailles of the North , " the most challenging public gardens create in Europe since World War II . The tarradiddle behind the garden is the poppycock of nance tales .
Alnwick Castle , cast as Hogwarth ’s in Harry Potter films . Photo credit : Christine Laennec .
In 1995 , an English cleaning woman and her hubby suddenly inherited nobility , a rook , and 14 demesne of gardens . The fresh - titled Duchess of Northumberland set out plan a serial of modern gardens , including a bamboo maze , a $ 7 million treehouse amid 17 linden tree Tree , and a Serpent Garden with topiary and water sculpture . Many of her young landscape were controversially modern , and the Poison Garden ( also arguably maudlin ) prove the most society eyebrow . While the Duchess was berated for eschew custom , she designed the Poison Garden with historical inspirations - the fabled garden in Padua , where the Medici family cultivated deaths of their enemies by way of botanic poisons , as well as the custom of medieval apothecary gardens . In aninterviewwith the Telegraph U.K. , the Duchess discusses the casual uses of Angel ’s trumpet ( Datura spp ) , a potent poison and aphrodesiac : " Victorian ladies used to model around a table with a datura plant in the middle and play card or have tea . They ’d pop their loving cup under a bell shape , tap it , and pollen would go down into the loving cup . They would see standardised effects to that of LSD . "
And beyond the pestilent flower seam looms Alnwick Castle , a familiar image to Harry Potter enthusiasts - the Castle was cast as Hogwarths in the serial ' first two films .
