It’s day three of the unfolding of the first Brugmansia bloom. I first noticed the bud 11 days ago, and the flower popped out three days ago. Since then it’s been achingly slow unfolding. It teaches one patience. The Day Lillies have been blooming about a week now. I’ve read that they are night scented, […]
Witch's Garden
A look at plants, ideas, resources, moon gardens, herbalism and how I became the witch's gardener. Gardening with a history.
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Welcome to a guide to magick herbs and herbalism – witchy plants, white and dark, potions and poisons for the cauldron, as well as goodies for kitchen witches
May 29 … Lamb’s Ear and Brugmansia about to pop in the witch’s garden
Lamb’s Ear is a seductive plant. It’s good for a moon garden as the furry leaves look almost silver in the daylight, and radiant at night. I had a few plants given to me a couple years back. It had taken over too much of her garden and she was tossing them out. I’ve kept […]
Brugmansia is welcomed to the witch’s garden with a witch’s brew of nasty weather
I was skeptical about trying a Brugmansia. They aren’t known for surviving in southern Illinois, and growing from seedlings or cuttings can take two or three years to pay off. But when I saw this monstrosity I decided to give it a go. I brought it into the witch’s garden and the weather turned foul. […]
The Witch’s Garden reborn: Taming the feral beast for a new spring
As spring sends new shoots bursting upwards, I’m struck with a sudden urge to rework the witch’s garden. A look at what survived the winter to act as a the base of a new beginning.
In the witch’s garden, peonies from the past bring forth a gift to the present
May 21, 2016. My mom planted this bush, who knows when. Dad has a thing about weeds, and a spray can full of noxious chemicals. It’s likely when the peonies started coming back in the spring he took them for weeds. For whatever reason, when I took over that part of the garden I took […]
Daylillies open for the first time this spring in the witch’s garden
May 19, 2016. It’s said that Daylillies are night scented, but so far I’ve seen no evidence of that. They’re tucked in below a butterfly bush and bordered by Lambs Ear and Poison Ivy. I’m in the process of yanking out all of the later. I’ll keep one because I do grow poisons after all. […]
Valerian displays its constellation with promise of a good night’s sleep come harvest
May 19, 2016 A lot of people take Valerian, usually as a tea made from the roots. This is the first year I’ve tried growing it on my own, and no sooner than I got it in the ground it began to bloom. It’s a lovely herb, and since it’s a perennial, I picked up […]
Penstemon digitalis, an American foxgloves blooms and spreads in the witch’s garden
May 19, 2016 Penstemon digitalis, a Foxglove native to the eastern and western United States and Canada turns out to be quite adept at spreading itself. It’s a lovely, though slightly more delicate version of Foxglove, with striking redding foliage. I noticed it’s spreading from the one I planted last year, to four or five […]
Fairy thimbles harbor a deadly poison in the witch’s garden
May 10, 2016 I love Foxglove. They used to be known as Fairy Thimbles. I was at a nursery the other day and they had a section for fairy gardens. The packaging was too neat, too professional and of course, there were no plants whatsoever associated with fairies. But there were cute little houses and […]
Pansies add another shade of black to the witch’s garden
May 10, 2016 Gardens are loved for their color. Witches are fond of their blacks. So we have to work in some black in here someplace. I ran across these Black Pansies at our local nursery this year, and filled half the containers out there on the table with them. Like a lot of black […]
