This little hellebore from our deadly garden is blooming about four months ahead of time. Perhaps it has the religious holiday seasons mixed up, as hellebore typically blooms when Lent begins, not during Advent.
Deadly Garden
We grow forty seven varieties of edible, nutrient rich fruits and vegetables in the backyard. Now we're also growing the opposite: plants that can kill.
In a bed bordered by black bricks, we planted a deadly garden of foxglove, hellebore, and poppies. These are nestled in among black mulch and labeled with stakes carrying the Mr. Yuck symbol. Alex has plans to create some skull and cross bones decorations too.
How Deadly?
Foxglove, or digitalis, is an extremely poisonous flower. When dosed in proper concentration it can temper irregular heartbeats. This property is also how foxglove can kill: it stops the heart cold.
Hellebore is also known as Lenten Rose. Sometimes used to treat a variety of symptoms, all parts of hellebore are toxic except the roots. Some historians believe that Alexander the Great died of an overdose of hellebore.
The poppy flower bud contains opium, a medicinal extract, recreational drug, and not in-frequent cause of lethal overdose. Of course, we can collect the poppy seeds to consume safely.
The book Wicked Plants by Amy Stewart profiles dozens of poisonous species found around the world, should you want to learn more.
Why introduce toxins to the garden?
Our garden is mostly created for our own vegetable consumption. With frequent visitors and open houses, the backyard is also an educational project. We hope to inspire people to better know their food and consider their relationship to nature.
Paying attention to nature means knowing the difference between edible, inedible, and dangerous plants. Especially as all the plants in our deadly garden are commonly used in landscape, settling them apart in an defined bed provides an important learning environment for children. There is much history in each of our deadly garden species, including how natives used them and how modern medicine is derived from plants.
Another reason to plant a deadly garden is for the seductive beauty. Foxglove are some of my favorite flowers, Lenten rose is one of the first blooms in the yard, and poppies are simply spectacular. The contradiction of a lethal yet gorgeous garden bed pleases us.
If ever zombies attack or the world otherwise ends, it might be useful to have strong medicines available in the backyard. This isn't much of a concern, of course, but we do consider knowing the 'enemy' plants as useful a skill as knowing how to grow and prepare nutritious edibles.
A garden is nothing if not an exploration of life and death. We give life to the plants we want to grow while pulling weeds from their roots. Allowing poisonous flowers to exist is just another way to highlight the true nature of a garden: a plot of land carefully controlled for purposeful results.
Added to Simple Lives Thursday 43.
Edible Garden Plans 2011
My cousin Todd, owner of Combs Landscape Design, came over to talk about our garden last week. He encouraged me to think of the backyard as a room with 'walls' of fence and house to be decorated with wooden panels painted by Lil. He advised us to expand the number of garden beds and arrange them in a funky mixed up way to complement the kid friendly decor coming soon. Thanks to intern Keara and nice weather at the end of last week, we got right to the work of building new beds. We also moved a bed from the chicken run to the open sunlight. We are adding 41 sq feet of growing space for a total of 184 sq feet in raised beds.
I hung myself and my expensive camera out an upstairs window to take the picture below. Don't worry, Dad, Alex was right behind me ready to call an ambulance if I fell. Later I used my favorite online editor Picnik to add text that shows exactly where we will plant everything.
Lil had the brilliant idea to add more fruit trees to the chicken run to provide the hens with shade and grow something yummy out of reach of the hungry birds. A dwarf apricot and pear are on their way to us from Stark Brothers. We will also move some raspberry bushes from a shadier part of the yard to take advantage of the sunlight.
Before May 15, we need to get dirt in the new beds and shore up some of the others. We'll set Lil to painting as soon as we get home from New England. Todd has an idea to paint the fence to highlight the 'wall' concept. We also have plans to move Lil's playhouse and make a patio on the shady side of the yard for al fresco dining and grilling, which will also call for moving some landscape plants.
Oh, and did you spot the deadly garden label? Alex will share about his pet project next week.
What are your gardening plans for 2011? If you are a beginning grower, be sure to download my free Grow Your Garden ebook.