Category Archives: perennials

Hort Horrors – Deadly Nightshade

education, perennials, the Horror!
Sally and Deadly Nightshade
Sally at the Pantry

I love Halloween, so a holiday-appropriate post appearing on my garden journal was only a matter of time. For October, I wanted to further research some of the more gruesome features of a garden. The first choice was a given. Deadly Nightshade is known throughout literature, film, and even bits of history for its poisonous properties. When a witch is shown cackling over her cauldron, you can bet money one of those potion ingredients will be nightshade. So, I wanted to learn more about this plant whose name is more fun if you whisper it in your most spooky tone of voice.

Nightshade Cameos

Bittersweet Nightshade in Penny Dreadful
Vanessa Ives and Dorian Gray admiring Nightshade

Recently the Other Half and I were watching an episode of Penny Dreadful where the characters Dorian and Vanessa were strolling through a greenhouse together. Vanessa mistakes the flower to be attractive and sensual but otherwise harmless. Dorian identifies the plant as deadly nightshade. Though the plant is a great symbol of Dorian’s role in Vanessa’s life, I of course noticed the plant looked just like one I had ripped from the Lot.

While researching deadly nightshade, I identified the flower in Penny Dreadful and the Lot as Solanum dulcamara or bittersweet nightshade. I’m wondering if this flower had the attractive face for film, so it was chosen over the actual deadly nightshade plant. According to the Center for Invasive Species and Ecosystem Health,  all parts of bittersweet nightshade (foliage, flowers, fruit, root, stem) is toxic so one should wear gloves when handling the plant. Though I love the feel of soil in my hands, I decided seasons ago to begin wearing gloves in the garden. Thank goodness.

The Real Deal – Atropa Belladonna

Atropa belladonna is a perennial belonging to the family Solanaceae, or the nightshade plants. Colorful, common names for this plant include devil’s berries, naughty man’s cherries, death cherries, beautiful death, and  devil’s herb. Other plants in this family include tomatoes, tobacco, potatoes, and eggplants. Deadly nightshade hails from Eurasia and prefers to lurk about wetlands in shady areas. How appropriate.

Atropa Bella-donna3.jpg
“Atropa Bella-donna3” by Tom Oates at the English language Wikipedia. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Commons.

The United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service states when “Linnaeus formally applied a scientific name to this plant in 1753, he acknowledged its toxic nature as well as its social value.” Many sources shared that “belladonna” is translated as “beautiful lady.”  Women of the Venetian court would use deadly nightshade to dilate their eyes, making them appear more alluring. “Atropas” is one of the three Fates in Greek Mythology, her tool being a set of shears she would use to snip the thread of (and therefore end) life.

Effects of Deadly Nightshade

All parts of deadly nightshade are poisonous, including the seductively sweet berries. Most poisonings with the plant happen through ingestion. The North Carolina State Cooperative Extension site identifies belladona poisoning symptoms as “Fever, rapid pulse, dilation of pupils, hot and dry flushed skin, headache, dry mouth, difficulty of swallowing, burning of the throat, hallucinations, convulsions.” Doesn’t sound like a good time.

But why?!

Yeah, I couldn’t stop the research at “this plant is bad news.” I wanted to know why it caused these symptoms. Stick with me because this is really interesting. Atropa belladonna contains toxic tropane alkaloids. These have the ability to block functions of the body’s nervous system. In fact, I discovered many optometrists use eyedrops containing atropine to dilate a patient’s eyes before the exam.

For Evil or Good

However, the Medicinal Plant Genomics Resource (a project through Michigan State University) cites how several of these alkaloids are utilized as medicine. Atropine is used for bradychardia and Wenckebach block, scopolamine for motion sickness, and hyoscyamine treats symptoms of gastrointestinal disorders. Sister G, being a nurse by profession, put atropine’s general use in medicine into layman’s terms for me.  She summarized it’s use as “something to dry up secreting glands.” For example, hospice patients are given a drop of atropine beneath the tongue so their airway is not blocked by saliva.

Rip it Out

I agree with most horticultural sites I browsed when they say nightshade should be viewed as a weed. It rambles about and can easily lure domestic animals or neighborhood children to their doom… or at least an expensive vet / doctor bill. In its stay on the Lot, I hardly ever saw pollinators visiting the bittersweet nightshade. Plus, when I removed the plant, it released an awful smell and the fleshy root constantly broke. Deadly nightshade is supposed to have the same root structure.  Either way, it will try your sanity as a gardener.

Corner Garden Creation

birds, design, native plants, perennials, planting, pollinators, Urban gardening

During a recent extended family fishing trip, Mom and Dad L chatted with me about wanting to revive bits of their backyard landscape. Being globetrotters and full-time grandparents, these two had handed over the management of the area to nature. Now they wanted to introduce a bit more order and color, but still provide pollinators and birds with food.

The Site

The little, sunny area they had their eye on sits at the southeast edge of their urban, corner lot. Viewers would see the flower bed from the sidewalk, the backyard, and from within the house at the kitchen window. That section of the backyard had been overrun by bull thistle (Cirsium vulgare) for several years, so the plants had built up quite the dense colony. The soil was also heavily compacted, so it was tilled and a lot of compost was worked into the bed to begin restoring structure to the soil. Good soil structure allows water to drain down through the soil and gives plants the ability to stretch out those roots without hinderance.

The Plants

When making suggestions for the new bed, I wanted to make sure the plants:

  1. were magnets for birds, bees, and butterflies
  2. were tough and didn’t require much maintenance beyond their first year
  3. were colorful through different parts of the season
  4. were sizes from very tall (seen from the house) to shorter (seen from the edges of the bed)

Final Plant Selection for a Sunny Bed

Here is the final roundup to begin with for this bed, in the order of bloom time. The blooming period of the plants overlap each other so there is always more than one plant in bloom at once. Some of these plants were volunteers from The Lot (it’s a great way to thin out overcrowded beds in your own garden) and some were already in Mom and Dad L.’s backyard.

  • Existing Random Tulips
  • 3 Bee Balm (Monarda)
  • 2 Butterfly Weed (Asclepias tuberosa)
  • 3 Asiatic Lilies
  • 3 Hybrid Tea Roses
  • 5 Daylilies
  • 2 Russian Sage (Perovskia atriplicifolia)
  • 5 Purple Coneflowers (Echinacea purpurea)
  • 3 Black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta)
  • 3 Sedum

The Placement

Stepping stones and plants were placed in the bed. We didn’t plant right away to allow for an adequate amount of shuffling, changing our minds, and reorganizing yet again. The stones allow Mom and Dad L. a way to access the plants without stepping directly onto the bed and compacting the soil again. Here is the preliminary layout for the flower bed as it is view directly from the backyard.

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Here is the same bed viewed from the sidewalk at the edge of the property. The roses were placed at the edges of the bed and not next to the path where a gardener would get scratched up. The coneflowers at the back will provide a tall backdrop for the bed.082315-layoutfence

And here is the bed once again, this time viewed across the backyard from the kitchen window. That same backdrop of purple coneflowers will create a large enough stand to be admired from this angle as well.

082315-layoutwindow

Finally we planted and watered the plants into the bed.

Planted Sunny Flower Bed

Finishing Touches

To help keep moisture in the soil for the new plants and block sunlight from the thistles more than likely beneath surface, we mulched the bed. Cypress mulch was applied 3 inches thick throughout, even under the stepping stones. Here is the finished bed from the backyard.

082315-layoutmulchedfront

And here it is from the sidewalk. 082315-layoutmulchedfence

It was really, really, REALLY hard for me not to place the plants closer together. However, I had learned it is better to allow the plants room to grow toward each other over the years rather than on top of each other during the second season.

Hopefully our winter is kind to the garden and all these transplants make it through to spring. In our Zone 6, if we plant by the end of summer, fall allows an adequate amount of time for the plants to settle in before the snow flies. I’m excited to see this bed next spring.

Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day – August 2015

bloom day, front bed, native plants, perennials, pollinators, the Lot

Today is Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day for August. Bloom Day is a monthly garden meme hosted over at May Dreams Garden, allowing gardeners from around the world to share what is blooming in their gardens. I’ve noticed on the Lot a handful of the plants that began blooming in July are also blooming this month.

These include:

  • Blanket Flower (Gaillardea)
  • Purple Coneflower (Echinacea purpurea)
  • Dwarf Coneflower (Echinacea purpurea ‘Buttefly Kisses’)
  • Black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia)
  • Multiple Coreopsis (Coreopsis verticillata)
  • Tall Garden Phlox (Phlox paniculata)
  • Dwarf Sea Holly (Eryngium planum ‘Blue Hobbit’)
  • Jupiter’s Beard (Centranthus ruber)
  • Rose Champion (Lychnis coronaria) 
  • Cardinal Flower (Lobelia cardinalis)

Joining the bloomin’ party this month is the butterfly bush (Buddleja davidii) and the great blue lobelia (Lobelia siphilitica). Right now the two are elbowing for space, so I’ll have to space them out more in the Spring.

081515-butterfly-bush

081515-blue-lobelia

Also new this month are the pretty, blue blooms of plumbago (Ceratostigma). Last Fall, I thinned clumps of plumbago from the large patch in the backyard bed. Those plants were then transferred to the front, south-facing bed. It seems the plant has successfully established itself. I’m excited to see how the red foliage will look in the south bed this Fall.

081515-plumbago-sbed

Finally, here is the cup plant (Silphium perfoliatum) I planted on the Lot last season. It was purchased at a native plant sale. I am quite excited about this plant because it is supposed to be a rockstar in providing for insects and birds. It towers over other plants in the lot, standing at about 8′ tall right now. Check it out, yo.

081515-cup-plant1

And here are just a couple of the many winged visitors to the plant today. I counted at least 5 different types of bees.

081515-cup-plant2 081515-cup-plant3

So, the second insect had me stumped. I searched about on The Interwebs today but had no luck. One last try as I was writing this post turned up the name Goldenrod Soldier Beetle (Chauliognathus pennsylvanicus). They feed primarily on nectar and pollen of plants in late summer. Occasionally they’ll treat themselves to an aphid or two. Here is a close-up.

081515-cup-plant-pollinator