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Its that time again...

 

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Hmmm....

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Pick your poison, literally........

I had the weather channel on in the background the other day because there were a lot of storms cranking up nearby, and I heard them talking about an infamous poisonous garden located in Northumberland, England, and I had to find out more about this fascinating idea of a poisonous garden.

So it turns out that the poisonous garden in Northumberland is not the first of its kind.  The idea of a "deadly garden" was the concept of Catherine de'Medici.  I have blogged about her in other post during out Medieval studies which you can find here.

You may remember her for marrying in to the de Medici family--the "Godfathers of the Renaissance," the family who founded banks.  She was kidnapped when she was 11 years old, and married Henry II, the King of France when she was 14 years old and became Queen.  She was also mother-in-law to Mary Queen of Scots.

Any of that ring a bell?  At any rate, the de' Medici garden had numerous poisonous plants growing, and it is said that Catherine had a private room full of tiny apothecary cabinets fill with a collection of deadly poisons.  Interestingly enough, a lot of people died around Catherine, for reasons unknown.  I wonder what it could have been.  Hmmm.....

In 2005, Duchess Jane Percy of Northumberland decided to create a poisonous garden modeled after that of Catherine de Medici.  The Duchess thought children would be more interested in how plants could kill rather than how plants could heal.  Her exact words were:

'I wondered why so many gardens around the world focused on the healing power of plants rather than their ability to kill... I felt that most children I knew would be more interested in hearing how a plant killed, how long it would take you to die if you ate it and how gruesome and painful the death might be.' - Duchess of Northumberland

Nightshade

The Poison Garden is located within the Alnwick Garden and has over 100 deadly, intoxicating, and hallucinogenic plants.

It is home to a variety of interesting plants such as Hemlock (which was the poison of choice for executions in Ancient Greece and in fact is said to be what killed philosopher Socrates), Strychnos nux-vomica or strychnine which can cause a human to die within 20 minutes after ingesting and is essentially undetectable, Foxglove or Digitalis can cause tremors, jaundice, hallucinations, nausea, vomiting, and even death, Deadly Nightshade or Atropa belladonna (can cause hallucinations, induce comas, unrelenting thirst, and convulsions), and Laburnum which can cause foaming at the mouth, induce comas, sleepiness, vomiting, nausea, spasms, and diarrhea.

Poppies

With permission from the government, the garden is also home to opium poppies, cannabis, tobacco, wild lettuce (Lactuca virosa), and magic mushroom.

They even have a treehouse restaurant that serves local dishes. Fingers crossed they will not be serving up anything grown in their garden.

There are, of course, a few rules if you want to take a tour of the gardens, get married at the gardens (yes this is an option), or hold a conference at the gardens.

Understandably, the garden is also under 24 hour security. You can only be in the garden with a guide.

You are not allowed to touch, smell, or taste the plants (duh for tasting), as there have been several tourist who became ill during their tour of the garden.

You should also hope you are not visiting the garden on a windy day.

You can find out more here at the official website.  I might be adding this to my bucket list.

Apologia Science Biology, Module 8 experiment continued.

Update, days 7 and 8.

The uncovered plant.

The covered plant.  This plant is actually growing very well.
We do see the yellow more than the green and that was the point.

Day 8.

Sadly, Smokey John Johns decided to jump up on the windowsill and
knocked this uncovered plant into the sink full of dishes and water so
that is why it looks so pathetic right now.  Only a few of the
plants could be put back.  Thanks, Smokey!

The covered plant, day 8.

You can find the rest of the experiment here at Day 6.  Links are at the bottom from the beginning until now.

Happy homeschooling!!!

Apologia Science Biology, Module 8 experiment continued.

day 6

The uncovered plant.

Uncovered plant.

The covered plant.

Covered plant.
This covered plant is responding a lot differently
than we had anticipated.

Initial post.
Day 4.

Apologia Science Biology, Module 8 experiment continued.

Radish leaf growth, day 4.

Uncovered plant.

Uncovered plant.

The next three are the covered plant.  This plant, so far, is far more interesting to me.

The first three days.

Apologia Science Biology, Module 8 experiment.

The environmental factor and its effect on radish leaf color.  To identify how light affects the growth of the radish plants.  The radish plants will grow in the dark but only for a short time.  The plant's food is stored in the seeds but without sunlight, photosynthesis cannot occur for their continued growth.  Lets find out.

Here is what you need:
~A package of radish seeds. ($0.25 a pack at the Dollar General).
~2 shallow dishes or planters. (The Dollar General had a wide assortment.  We used two small plastic planters, $0.20 each).
~soil.
~plastic wrap. (I am not a plastic person, I do not have any plastic wrap in my house. I did find a few baggies so I cut them open to use for this).
~a box to cover one of the plants.

Put some soil in your planters, wet the soil, then add at least 30
of the radish seeds to the top of the wet soil.  Mark one of the planters
with the word "light" and cover with plastic.  Cover the other planter with plastic and
cover with the box.  Put both of these in the same area, an area which is warm and
there will be sunlight.

This is the starting photo taken 04/21/2015.

Day 2. This is the planter without the box covering it.  Not a lot going on.

Day 2. This is the planter covered by the box.  Not much going on here either but there is a slight difference to the planter exposed to the light.

Day 3. The uncovered planter.  A little sprouting starting to happen.

Day 3. The covered plant is sprouting at a much faster rate than that of the uncovered plant.

This is a close up of day 3 the covered plant.  The sprouts look feather-like.

Random picture of radish leaves.

What we are looking for are the leaves.  The leaves in the light will start out yellow but will turn green because of the sunlight.  The leaves under the cover of the box will start out yellow as well but will stay yellow because of the lack of sunlight.  These leaves will also increase in number.  As I stated above, the covered plants will not survive long without the process of photosynthesis.

More planting!

We love to plant things even if they do not grow well. 
I picked up a few more of these little plant starter kits to plant.  They are easy and fun!

Zinnias, forget-me-nots, marigolds, and cornflowers.

Very simple.  Get your supplies ready and open your packages.

Mix the dirt and water until moist and put in a few seeds.

We always forget which is which so we label them.

And that is it.  We will move these outside if they do okay.