Carol Houghton’s mystery plant.
GARDENINGTHE thorny question posed by Carol Houghton over her mystery plant provided me with much useful information about the thornapple, or jimsonweed, datura stramoniun.
Carol Trow said the loco-weed or moonflower was highly hallucinogenic, perhaps explaining why it was a favoured cultivar of ancient monks, whose spirituality may have been helped on a bit.
She Navajo saying: "Eat a little and go to sleep. Eat some more and have a dream. Eat some more and don’t wake up…"
She said it was probably not the ideal plant for most gardens.
That was obviously not the information available to Beryl Adamson, from Freshwater, who was given a few seeds by her brother, intrigued by the plant he saw on wasteland outside Lyons in France.
It made a pretty, if pretty toxic display, which would knock the socks off a 'pot’ plant.
I had responses which were informative and those that made me chuckle, including one from Rob, of the horticultural dept of the Revenge of the Lawn.
But my prize of Chilean myrtles go to Carol Trow, with another bonus prize to Carol Hamilton, from Binstead, for the length of her answer. I made the mistake of hitting print and it probably cost a whole tree in paper.
A tale of three Carols, in harmony.
Your prizes will be with you before Christmas, I promise…