What's blooming in the Witch's Garden?

Valerian has had a place in the magical pharmacy since ancient Rome and Greece. The Roman physician and philosopher Aelius Galenus remarked on its use as an aid to insomnia, which was also known by the Greeks, as it was written up by Hippocrates a few centuries earlier.  Our old friend, Nicholas Culpeper described Valerian in […]

Night Scented Stock, or Matthiola longipetala is a new addition to the moon garden this year.  Francis Bacon wrote “And because the breath of flowers is far sweeter in the air (where it comes and goes like the warbling of music) than in the hand, therefore nothing is more fit for that delight, than to know […]

Henbane’s place in the Witch’s Garden is that of inducement … hallucinations, dreams, light, euphoria, for the Greeks it inspired oracles and it’s thought it was the ingredient taken by the Vikings to inspire the berserkers. Highly toxic and if you live it’s a safe bet you’ll never be quite the same. This is the […]

I’ve tried some commercial Valerian Root products and they do work. It’s a subtle somnolent, relaxing you more than hammering you with sleep. Some believe that the Pied Piper of Hamelin had Valerian in his pocket, as rats are known to love the scent of the plant. Witches used Valerian in love potions to attract […]

Perhaps we should turn to folklore for help in keeping out Peonies and other garden plants safe from deer and other critters? In the first book written in English dedicated to gardening, Thomas Hill related in 1577 that if Peonies were grown at the edges of your garden, that they “are after (as by a […]

I didn’t expect this Belladonna plant to make it. Last year I found myself without any Belladonna, so ordered a plant. I planted it in a spot shadier than usual, and it put off a few blooms and promptly died back, till eventually the weeds took it over. But surprisingly it’s back this year, and […]