December 15, 2010 • Category: Blog, Guest Authors, Promotions
39 COMMENTS
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As some of you know, I planted a poison garden while I was working on Wicked Plants. I’d never grown, much less seen, some of the plants in the book, and it’s just too weird to write about plants you don’t know. So I managed to come up with about 35 species that I could actually grow in my climate, in a small secluded garden, without inflicting too much harm on anyone (poison oak, for instance, was not invited).
And you know what? Some of those plants were very pretty. Castor bean! Datura! Opium poppy! Foxglove! Tobacco! Lovely, really. Not suitable as an entree, but lovely nonetheless.
So imagine my excitement when Botanical Interests offered to put those very plants together in a Wicked Plants seed collection. The impetus for this is the upcoming Wicked Plants exhibit at the San Francisco Conservatory of Flowers (more about that in the coming months)–this gives them a little something extra to sell in the gift shop and support their fine work.
(Botanical Interests, by the way, does a lot to support the fine work of botanical gardens. Have you seen their Botanic Garden Series in partnership with Denver Botanic Gardens?)
So. Here, just in time for your last-minute holiday shopping: the Wicked Plants Seed Collection. Here’s what you get: Datura meteloides, foxglove ‘Gloxiniiflora’ blend, Nicotiana sylvestris, two poppies (Double Peony and Hungarian Blue), and a castor bean ‘Impala’.
Oh, and let me just add–I’m not making money off this; I was just happy to see it happen so that the Conservatory would have a revenue-generator for their gift shop next year. If Botanical Interests does well with it, all the better. And if you happen to know a shop that would like to carry the collection, have them contact Botanical Interests and make it so.
–Amy Stewart, author of Wicked Plants
Want to win the Wicked Plants book and the Wicked Plants Seed Collection? Just leave a comment here or on our Facebook page to enter!
Tags: Amy Stewart, Botanical Interests, San Francisco Conservatory of Flowers, Wicked Plants
Jennifer W. says...
What lovely seed packs! Maybe THESE will keep away the deer and groundhogs!
December 15, 2010@ 8:50 PMKaren Borton says...
Hey! Maybe these are plants rabbits won’t eat??!!
December 15, 2010@ 7:38 PMstone says...
. I have a garden I do for a client with a big concrete cross in the middle, I feel like it needs plants from a fantasy graveyard…
Plants like skull cap, mandrake, wolf’s bane, & salvia divornum… I still need the salvia divornum and the mandrake… Mayapple just isn’t quite the same thing… :b
Another book added to my wish list.
December 15, 2010@ 7:02 PMDerek says...
I’m reading the book now. I’d love to plany some of the seeds!
December 15, 2010@ 5:42 PMAmanda says...
My daughter (4) has a toddler’s fascination with all things venomous, toxic, and poisonous and when she started in on plants (a nice change from the snakes) we pulled out my copy of this and have been reading one entry a night — at dinner time! I’d love to show her the plants…. at a distance.
December 15, 2010@ 5:22 PMBillie Brownell says...
Wow! what a great idea. This combined with a voodoo doll should do it.
December 15, 2010@ 4:40 PMKaryn M. Newton says...
What an interesting idea! I already have some 2011 seed catalogs at home, so this would be a welcome addition to my garden plans!
December 15, 2010@ 4:10 PMMaria says...
This is a really neat idea. I love plants with a story. Amy, I reading Flower Confidential right now. What a great book. Thanks!
December 15, 2010@ 4:05 PMMolly (M) says...
Great idea! I would love to try my hand raising the plants while reading the book.
December 15, 2010@ 3:51 PMtori says...
what a lovely pairing! it would be such a cool thing to win, thank you!
December 15, 2010@ 3:38 PM