The skull and crossbones on the black entrance gates are a clear warning: inside is something dangerous. But this isn’t a wild animal enclosure or store of explosives, it’s a small garden inside the grounds of the world-famous Alnwick Garden in the northeast of England.
natural born killers So why the warnings? Because behind the gates is a collection of natural born killers: around 100 plants, some of them commonly grown in European gardens, others more exotic, but all of them toxic and dangerous. Fans of the Harry Potter series will recognize Mandragora , which legend says screams when its human-like roots are pulled from the ground. Alongside Atropa belladonna and Ricinus communis are opium poppies , ”magic mushrooms ,” cannabis, Catha edulis (‘khat’ – a drug from Somalia), and coca (the source of cocaine). The Alnwick Garden had to obtain a special licence to grow these narcotic plants for educational purposes .
please do not touch To protect visitors, some species are kept within locked cages . Others are planted out of reach of the pathways. Visitors are warned not to touch, smell – and certainly not to taste – any of the plants.
Created by Jane Percy, the Duchess of Northumberland, Alnwick Garden is a paradise of colourful and fragrant plants, with water fountains, walkways, cafés, shops and much more. But it is the Poison Garden, opened in 2005, that continues to excite visitors the most.
The italian job The inspiration for the sinister collection came from a visit by the duchess to the historic botanic gardens in Padua, Italy, where the powerful Medici family grew medicinal and poisonous plants. Their use was both beneficial for the health of patients and deadly for their enemies.
Indeed, for most of the plants in the Poison Garden, the size of the dose is the difference between poison and medicine.
While the gates of the Poison Garden are always kept locked, it has proved so popular that plans are already underway to double its size – making the garden twice as deadly as before…
(PLAY THE AUDIO) INTERVIEW: a growing drug problem Alnwick Castle has been the home of the Dukes of Northumberland for centuries. Before that it was the home of their ancestors, the Earls of Northumberland. It is open to the public and contains a beautiful garden. This became even more interesting in 2005 when the Duchess of Northumberland decided to open a “Poison Garden.” We asked Trevor Jones, the Garden’s head of operations, how this idea came about :
Trevor Jones (Standard British accent): As she was exploring European gardens, trying to seek inspiration for this one, she got fascinated by a garden in Italy that originally was built for the Medici family. They didn’t like any competitors, so they used to poison them! And so they grew poisonous plants. The Duchess was inspired by this and wanted to include a poison garden here at Alnwick, mainly to educate people about the things that you can do with plants, but to try and capture the imagination of children, especially.
I think in many gardens, you get exposed to herb gardens or apothecary gardens , and it’s always the good of the plant. Although... some, many, plants are good, there’s an awful lot that are equally as bad, and so she felt that captured the imagination of a child, and so if you capture their imagination, then hopefully they might become gardeners of the future.
Feeling hungry? And herbal poisons haven’t completely gone out of fashion:
Trevor Jones: One, for example, was used only a few years ago, 10 years ago, by an Indian lady who decided to get her own back on her ex-lover. She broke back into the home they shared, and in her pockets she had some aconitum seeds. Aconitum is often called monkshood ; beautiful plant, very commonly grown. She ground the seeds up, popped the seeds in his curry, and he actually died.
pirates The poison garden contains some pretty scary plants:
Trevor Jones: We have things like Catha edulis . Catha edulis is a huge problem now in the UK, it’s a classified C drug . Now, we can grow catha and we also grow cannabis because we have a Home Office licence, hence we always have to keep the garden locked and it’s only guided tourists through, but Catha edulis has a huge effect on the body. It’s often chewed , it comes from Somalia and there it’s used extensively to keep people going , to make them work harder, to give them lots of energy, and the problem with it is that when you come on the down side of things, you go into deep depressions and get very aggressive, and so often people like the Somalian pirates that board ferries and yachts and ships, they all chew catha to give them the aggression that they need. It’s a very nasty plant. People in this country, especially youngsters, will use it . They’ll chew it and then they’ll go out clubbing. So they’ll dance for 24 hours, but they won’t remember what they’ve danced to.
flying high And that’s not all:
Trevor Jones: We also grow Salvia divinorum . Salvia divinorum you could buy over the Internet, very, very easily about three or four years ago. Now it too is a classified drug. Salvia divinorum is used, again, by young people to get an instant high. They will make tea from the leaves, and so just like making a normal cup of tea. They will drink the tea, and then they start to hallucinate, it’s a hallucinogenic, and so, if you go on things like YouTube, you’ll actually see youngsters jumping off of bridges because they think they can fly, and you often see – or you can on YouTube – young schoolboys, public schoolboys , jumping off desks , with hangman’s nooses round their necks, because they all think that they can fly, and that they won’t hang themselves, so it’s a very, very dangerous drug, but very commonly available.
