virtual Chas. Addams garden

[truepenny]

elisem mentioned somewhere wanting to plant a Charles Addams garden, which has inspired me (a.) to go find the cartoon in question, and (b.) to invoke the power of Google to find pictures of the various plants.

From Charles Addams (for whom I cannot find a good website, although I was enchanted to discover, via the IMDb, that he did the title drawings for Murder by Death), My Crowd, 1970 (New York: Fireside-Simon & Schuster, 1991), p. 68:

Dearest: How I wish you were here with me now to see how lovely our little garden has become! The black nightshade is in full bloom, and the death camass we planted last fall is coming along beautifully. The henbane [you have to scroll down a ways, but the pictures are worth it] seems to have shot up overnight. You will be glad to know that the dwarf's hair was not affected by the dry spell, as we feared, after all. A myriad delightful little slugs have appeared, as if from nowhere, on the rotten stump by the belladonna patch [scroll down for the patch of belladonna], and this morning I noticed snake eggs hatching near the pool. Do finish up that business, darling, and hurry home.

For lagniappe (and because I can't find the damn dwarf's hair--although, let me tell you, stick "dwarf's hair" into Google, and you get some, er, edifying results), here's Georgia O'Keeffe's painting Bella Donna.

Comments

[magentamn.livejournal.com]

If you want nightshade, I will be glad to send you some the next time I'm weeding. It is poisonous, and tends to take over. Friends say I have it because I'm a Witch, but I don't USE nightshade!

I'll ask around and see if anyone knows what dwarf's hair might refer to. I know someone who delibrately planted a Witch's garden, though not using Addams as his reference.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

I personally have no use for nightshade, but maybe you should ask Elise. :)

And please do ask around about dwarf's hair. 'Cause it's bugging me now.

[magentamn.livejournal.com]

I asked the friend with the "witches garden" and he has no idea what "dwarf's hair" is, and offered sources for aconite, wolfbane, dwale, and other such.

Vinca is a hallucinogen?? I have vinca, since it's great ground-cover for deep shade. Hmmmmm

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Huh. Well, I'd say Addams just made it up, except that that's what I thought about death camass until I googled for it. Someday, somehow, somebody will find the answer, and that will be a good thing.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

I didn't know vinca was a hallucinogen.

Dude, the opportunities I missed as a kid ...

[eileenlufkin.livejournal.com]

I don't know what "Dwarf's hair" is either, but I know a good poem about slugs. http://www.gnt.net/~wright/slugs.html

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Ooh, yes. Sharon Olds. V. v. fine. Thank you for reminding me of that poem.