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.