I regularly hear from readers who want to know why Wicked Plants doesn't have an index.  It was a mistake, I tell them.  But it's hard to understand how an index could be accidentally left out of a book unless you understand how the production process works. Once the manuscript is finished, edited, and ready to go to copyediting, a checklist gets filled out.  That checklist covers any number of production issues still...

Andrew Keys invited the staff at the San Francisco Conservatory of Flowers to create a RadioGarden podcast about the making of the Wicked Plants exhibit.  He assured us that any ordinary audio recorder would work; in fact, he's done interviews on his iPhone.  So, equipped with exactly that sort of technology, curator Lau Hodges and I settled in to do our interview the afternoon before the opening night gala. Except.  Andrew...

Wicked Plants temporary tattoos!  Beer glasses!  T-shirts!  Shot glasses!  Seeds!  The San Francisco Conservatory of Flowers is selling all kinds of crazy, wonderful, Wicked Plants stuff to go along with their beautiful and creepy exhibit based on the book. Shop online here, and go here to check out the details on the exhibit, which runs through...

My own poison garden (above) is nothing compared to what the San Francisco Conservatory of Flowers has planned this summer.  Their Wicked Plants exhibit opens in April and runs through October, and while I won't see it unveiled for a few months, I've managed to coax a few hints out of them and trust me, it's going to be AMAZING. (Hint:  There will be murder and intrigue!) The Conservatory is offering a special deal to...

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...

The Tucson Botanical Gardens has taken this Wicked Plants thing one step further and created not only an exhibit, but a character named Dr. Ergot Ratbane and a mad scientist laboratory.  How's that for a good gig–playing a mad scientist at a botanical garden? Meet Dr. Ratbane here, and go check out the exhibit if you're in the area.  I haven't seen it myself, but I'll be there March 11.  The exhibit runs...