Brunch with Bigfoot Michigan Rob - Ep 134 - Varla Ventura | Enchanted Plants | Mystical Gardens | Gnomes - Brunch with Bigfoot Michigan Rob

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Yes, everybody, they are going fast. They are going fast.
Welcome to Brunch with Bigfoot in Michigan. Rob got a
great guest, Varla. Then Sura joins the show. Yes, we
got a great show for you. A little different, but
it's always intoxicating. It's always a great show, a lot

(00:22):
of fun when Varla comes on. So thanks to Varla.
In advance, Thanks to each and every single one of
you for subscribing to Bigfoot Michigan Rob on YouTube. If
you do, please subscribe. Subscribe to Texas Front, Porsablins and
the Boost Pearent Normal podcast Monica Rowlans. You can find
here our Paranormal World. Paranormal Paul Donnicho says stuff. And
we'll all be at the conference in nineteenth and twentieth,

(00:46):
so it's gonna be a great event. Thanks for that.
In advance to everybody for coming on in, and for
those of you that are coming in, I must thank
you for buying my two books out there on Amazon,
Bigfoot Michigan Rappers and True Crypton the Counters Book one
and book two. Simply type Bigfoot Mission Robbing or Amazon
Browser and the books will appear for you. So thanks.

(01:08):
Please leave a review it does push books sales. Typically
I pinned my books at the top of the chat,
but for my lovely guest Varla, I pinned her latest
and greatest, which we're gonna talk a little about a
little bit about today. It's pinned at the top, So
go check out Varral like you find all of her
books on Amazon. The link for this particular book is

(01:31):
pinned up top. Click on it and check it out
if you would, don't forget the super chat so open
a great way to help support what we all do
around here. You too, maydies, can become a BMR pirate
are join today, join the many, the few, depends on
your point of view, and you know what you get.

(01:52):
You get a picture of good old BMR sporting a
bandana next to your name in the chat room. How
about that? That's what you get. So thank you so much,
Thanks for thanks in advance for everything, and I appreciate that.
And what I'm going to do is go ahead and
bring up my awesome guests Arla. Hello, Hello, Barla. Hello, Well,

(02:18):
it's always great to see you greeting see you as well.

Speaker 2 (02:21):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (02:25):
I always have to ask this and it is going
to kind of lead into what We're going to talk
about the weather in Minnesota. We're finally breaking here. We
finally got sixty degree weather. Then it'll be eighty like
in two weeks.

Speaker 2 (02:37):
How's it up there, It's similar. Yeah, everything's finally just
like bursting into blooms. You know. All the cherry trees
and apple trees are blooming, and tulips are starting to
come out of the ground. So we're well into spring
and it's been really gorgeous. A couple of rainy days,
but really gorgeous. So I'm not complaining. It is supposed

(02:57):
to get really hot this weekend. I'm not complaining. I'm
ready for it.

Speaker 1 (03:01):
Yes, yeah, my tulips of believe it or not, my
tulips have bloom and they're ready.

Speaker 2 (03:07):
Yeah, you're lower your zone that you grow. You know,
your USDA growing zone is probably a couple lower than
or would be higher a higher zone. I'm guessing you're
probably five or maybe six, do you know.

Speaker 1 (03:24):
I think it's six. But I will tell you this,
I'm glad you brought that up because, Okay, my yard
is pretty spacious. I love gardening. I have always a
thriving vegetable garden. Okay, then what I do is. I
buy flowers and I arrange them in the pots along
my outside deck. But for the last two or three years,

(03:45):
I've been trying to just grow some pretty cool looking perennials,
and I can never get them to last a season.
They don't come back. And I do a lot of
research on this. Look things up. I checked my soil
even maybe had bad soil, but really it's not bad
because the garden is so fantastic. So my friend Monica

(04:10):
Pear a normal world, She's an excellent gardener, and she's
the same kind of we have the same interest. When
it goes with back end, she's gonna help me out,
and she's been doing some research on what I can
plant because I really can't plant anything until maybe Memorial
weekend because yeah, at night it's still forty eight degrees.
Nothing germinates, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, So I'm looking

(04:35):
forward to that once again. And it's kind of cool
because I love gardening. I do it. I love the
outdoors and making the yard look cool, and so yeah,
I'm out of green thumb. I guess I can say
I'm with the gardens, just not my flowers, which kind
of leads us really into today's show, because this is

(04:56):
right up my alley. No it's not Bigfoot, her dog
man tell you what. There's things going on right with
the we're going to talk about it. I'm just trying
to find the book jacket here for you really quick.
We talked a little bit about your book here, Enchanted Plants,
A Treasury of Botanical folklor and Magic Varla Ventura. That's

(05:20):
the jacket again. It's on Amazon and the book link
is pinned in this show. Check it out. Thank you
for that.

Speaker 2 (05:27):
So and that's hardcover. Yeah, the judges. Oh that is
all color illustrations inside. Let me find one for you.

Speaker 1 (05:42):
Oh there you go.

Speaker 2 (05:43):
Yeah, it's really they did a lovely, lovely job with it. Yeah,
there's the Witch's Garden.

Speaker 1 (05:49):
Oh wow. Yeah, well, you know it's very bewitching the.

Speaker 2 (05:58):
App I'm pleased with it. Yeah, yes, it looks.

Speaker 1 (06:01):
I can't wait for my copy because I will definitely read.
You know, literally, I love reading. I haven't I don't
read that often just because I'm so busy. I've gotten
this corner my office area. There's about a stack of
twenty books that either people sent to me or I
purchased embarrassingly, So we alive yet to open a cover,

(06:22):
you know, but you know so, I mean, it looks
cool on the bookshelf, but well, here's.

Speaker 2 (06:27):
The great news. The Chanted Plants. Like many of my books,
you can read it cover to cover if you'd like,
but it's really kind of set up by the type
of plant, and then it's organized by the type of
garden that you might encounter in like fairy and fairy
tales and folklore. So if you read it in succession,

(06:49):
you'll kind of go on that journey from garden to garden,
but you also can just read it a little bit
at a time, like each shorter chapter. I love books
like that. It's it's especially books that give you like
a lot of information. It's not there's a narrative in there,
but you can also just kind of jump around, and
I enjoy reading that way myself. So that's kind of

(07:11):
how the book is organized. So even if you don't
read it cover to cover, you might say, oh, let
me read about Foxglove today. I love Foxglove.

Speaker 1 (07:19):
Yeah, that is great. I do like those like short
stories are broken down where it's not like one narrative
throughout as your typical novel, you know.

Speaker 2 (07:29):
Yeah, yeah, it doesn't fire as much concentration, and it
also allows you, like I think it's great to be
able to take in some of that information and just
think about it before you move on to the next thing.

Speaker 1 (07:42):
So, yeah, So what we've talked about, You've been on
the show five six times. We cover every regamut of
the streams phenomena. What was your passion behind finally coming
out with this book.

Speaker 2 (07:58):
Well, I've always been a plant person, and I kind
of started my like, you know, working career, working in
retail nurseries and doing landscaping and working in flower shops,
and then as a teenager, I studied a lot of
herbalism and just you know, I'm just a consumer of

(08:19):
plant books in general. So in many ways, I you know,
I've been researching this for like twenty years. Took me
about five years to write, from you know, beginning to end,
many years about I got the idea about five years
ago and kind of started compiling it. And so what

(08:40):
happened is I was I think it was like twenty twenty,
and I was reading Grim's fairy Tale because you know,
of course, as one does is COVID times tapping the
old bookshelf and I started just paying attention to the
different plants that were mentioned in these different stories, and
then I thought, wouldn't it be cool to have a

(09:00):
book that explores these fairy tales but through the lens
of the plants, so that in the end, each story
that I included and each plant that I chose, without
that plant, the story would be very different. So once
I had that criteria, I was able because there's lore

(09:22):
about every plant. There's the lore about every plant. Every
plant has a story behind it, So I was able
to kind of narrow it down by finding stories or
plants that had a great deal of lore, so that
I could either retell some of those tales, which was
a lot of fun to like rewrite some of those
fairy tales, or excerpt directly from an old story, like

(09:45):
there's a section from Alice in Wonderland in there, and
there's a section from Dracula in there. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (09:53):
Yeah, So so talk a little bit about these plants
mysterious gardens. There's there's something to it. You know. I've
said this a couple of times over the years that
I've been finding that, you know, when you're out in
the forest, the forest reminds me of today's modern internet.

(10:16):
You know how the internet is all these different networks,
lots of noise, yes, And and these plants, trees, flowers,
what have you. They communicate, don't they with each other?

Speaker 2 (10:30):
Yes? Yes, And actually they communicate with us, so that's
even better they can. I mean, that's actually kind of
start the book out saying, you know, as long as
I can remember, I've been able to hear plants, sort
of the way some people can hear ghosts or you know,
people have different gifts. And I know that that's a

(10:51):
strange thing to say, but it's actually very true. I've
had a very intuitive relationship with plants since I was
a child, and have many many visceral early childhood memories
that are built around a specific plant and a plant memory,
you know, whether it was like lemons from my grandmother's

(11:12):
garden or an herb that I gathered with my mom,
or things like that, so that the I mean, yeah,
it is. There's a level of communication that and I
don't I don't think you have to have that to
be a plant person, or to work with plants, or
be a really you know, have a green thumb, or

(11:33):
or be a good garden I mean there's there's a
there's a couple of plants that really I don't like
and they don't like me. There's a couple of plants
that I like, but they don't like me, and they
every single time. I've got an office full of just
hit a plant there. I've got an office full of plants.
I've got a humidifier going all the time, I've got
perfect lighting, all the things. But there's just a few

(11:56):
plants to just we don't we don't connect. And I've
agreed to We've just agreed to disagree. Right, It's like people,
it's just like, you know what, No, it's not working.

Speaker 1 (12:09):
You know, it's funny because I started doing this a
couple of years ago. Now I'm pretty good with the
vegetable garden. I said, like my perennial gardeners this every year.
It's a trial and error.

Speaker 2 (12:19):
It's an annual garden.

Speaker 1 (12:20):
It's a yes, it is, I said, Am I planting annuals?
Because you know it's weird because annual to me is
twelve months. Well, they blew them every spring summer, right,
but it's the perennial. But I knew that, But I
was just convinced the words so the one thing that
I can't grow tomato Tomato plants. I mean, I get
them becoming good, but of all that's the easiest thing.

(12:42):
They grow like weeds, right. But I found myself literally
started this a couple of years ago, especially since I'm
more involved in high strangeness. I started literally talking to
my plants like I'm talking to you right now, Hey, buddy,
how you doing, gels, guys whatever, you know, give us
some fruit, yeah, I you know, showing them some love

(13:04):
and literally talking to them. In fact, it was kind
of embarrassed as my neighbor crossways, So me talking to
the garden. Who the hell are you talking.

Speaker 2 (13:11):
To the garden?

Speaker 1 (13:12):
The garden, man, I gotta tell you, yeah, I'm not
just saying this to have an entertaining show. It seems
like when I showed them love verbally, it seemed like, damn,
this garden started to perk up a little bit. And
I was thinking, was that because of me? Or it
was just just some you know, coincidence. Right.

Speaker 2 (13:35):
Well, I think there's like two parts to it, you know,
because there's been all kinds of scientific studies of like,
you know, hooking things up to plants and plants making
certain noises or having responses when you like tear a
leaf or like I remember, in like science class, we'd
have plants that we play classical music too, and then
we'd have plants that we played you know, heavy metal to,

(13:58):
and we would see we'd measure the different. So I
think there's that, and then the other part of it
is that by having those conversations, you're actually sort of,
whether you're totally conscious of it or not, you're paying
a lot more attention to that plan. So therefore you're
chatting with it. But you're also you know, you're kind
of like noticing, oh, maybe there's an aphid here or this,

(14:21):
let's get these yellow leaves off. You know, we'd like
to have our hands busy. Gardeners love to have our
hands busy at all times, right, so there's never there's
never a dull moment in a garden. There's always something
to do. And so you might be you know, picking
off the like the dead leaves and kind of you know,
dead heading your flowers or whatever while you're having these conversations,

(14:42):
and your plants also respond to that.

Speaker 1 (14:46):
I do think they do. And I think that for me,
even personally, it's a strange thing. But when I start,
you know, communicating, it makes me feel good too for
some re especially when you see the fruits of talking
to him.

Speaker 2 (15:03):
Oh yeah, oh absolutely. And actually recently, like right before
I was having a pretty major surgery. I it was
just like the day before, and I drove down to
the Como Park Conservatory and I went and I sat
in the Victorian conservatory room. You know, it was really

(15:24):
stressed out, kind of in panic mode, really like afraid.
And I sat in this room this you know, this
like the beautiful glass dome above me, a fountain in
front of me, and just all of these plants around me,
and just like walking in there, I felt an immediate
sense of calm. But I sat. I mean, I honestly

(15:48):
sat on this bench for close to an hour, not moving.
I'm kind of a mover, and I didn't move. I
just sat there and I just listened to the water,
and I just like took in all that oxygen. And
you know, there's that tradition it's called they call it
forest bathing, which is essentially walking through a forest, but
walking very slowly and really kind of to like take

(16:11):
in all the sounds. You know, we tend to like, oh,
let's go for a walk and we try and get
from point A to point B. Forest bathing is really
more of a like a mindfulness practice as you go
into a forest and you're noticing the sounds and you're
not necessarily trying to achieve anything. You're trying to just

(16:31):
observe what's around you. And the hardest part about it
is slowing yourself down is that you know, it's like, oh,
I just kind of want to like keep going down
the path and see what's next. And so it's that
practice of just kind of bathing yourself in the natural
world that can be really beneficial, whether even if it's
just going into a artificial conservatory, you know, an artificial forest.

(16:54):
It's not an artificial forest, but it's as an enclosed
hot house, which is a great place to go in
the winter, right, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (17:02):
Of course, yeah it is. Do you think that, because
I've kind of found this the more involved I've been
with this, do you think that the plants take on
like the owner's the homeowner's personality, the gardener's personality, Because
it seems like conveying this energy or whatever it is

(17:24):
that you're expounding into the ground, and if you're very cheerful.
It seems to me that you have a cheery looking
garden or flower bed, and if you're like one of
these like down the dumps type of people, you think
they respond to that. Maybe sometimes you don't get growth
in the garden simply because of the negative I think, so.

Speaker 2 (17:45):
Yeah, I mean, I think the other thing is if
you're you know, if you're not, if you have a
lot of negativity, you're also probably going to be really
focused on that negativity and not as observant of the
things that might need doing in the garden. But I
have kind of a rule because you know, I lived
in the San Francisco Bay area for the majority of

(18:07):
my gardening career, and if you want to feel good
about yourself, you know, garden and any you know, garden
in any coastal zone along California's coast, and you're like, what,
I can grow anything, right. But when I moved to Minnesota,
that was a bit of a rude awakening because some
of my favorite plants are like subtropicals, So I kind

(18:27):
of I tried to keep replanting some things, and then
I just got to this point where I was like,
you know, if you can't make it through a zone
three winter. I can't have you in my garden as
a as a perennial. I will put like annuals out
just for pretty's sake, you know. But and then there's
certain plants that I've had a lot of success with

(18:48):
and other plants that I just they just they say
they're okay for that, like I me, And roses doesn't happen.
We don't. I don't. I can't do roses. I just
I've tried. I've I've heard all of these really interesting
techniques where you tip them over and bury them in
the winter, and I need my plants to be heartier

(19:11):
than that. Well, but I will baby along things, like
you know, if I've got a lovely aram or something,
or a vampire lily something that probably won't even make
it through the winter indoors, I'll baby those things along.
But I'm kind of tough on my garden. I'm I'm
kind of just like you know what, you guys. Let's
just I got to I got to endure the winter,

(19:33):
so do you. But then the plant, those plants thrive
so much. Then you get a little bit more experimental
with different colors and different varieties, and you know, and
it gets expensive too if you have to replant your
perennials every year.

Speaker 1 (19:50):
Right.

Speaker 2 (19:50):
Well yeah, so now your perennials that you're replanting, are those.

Speaker 1 (19:56):
In pots, the ones that I'm going to purchase?

Speaker 2 (20:02):
Do you plant them into pots?

Speaker 1 (20:04):
I take them mile of the pot and plant in
the right rug right.

Speaker 2 (20:07):
Into the ground. Yeah. Well, I mean the thing that
helps my plants more than anything is that I have
because so I have lavender and rosemary that have both
come back and they should not be coming back in
my zone. They could probably survive your zone, but not mine.
And but I have this maple tree in my front
yard and it drops tons and tons and tons of

(20:28):
leaves and I literally put like two feet of just leaf.
I don't even mulch it up. I just dump the
leaves on all my beds in like mid October and
like so that to the point where you can't even
see the plant anymore. It just looks like I mean,
like two feet Yeah. Yeah, it's free, comes right off

(20:49):
my tree. I don't have to pay to have the
city pick it up, you know, So it's kind of
a win win. And then I just pull those off
around this time or a little bit earlier, and that
has helped some of the plants that are a little
bit more on the And then the other thing too
is like you know, the directions make a huge difference. Well,

(21:09):
you know, if it's your north facing garden, it gets
colder in the winter, south facing garden stays warmer even
under the sun or the snow.

Speaker 1 (21:17):
So yeah, I live in southern exposure. So my entire
backyard is ninety percent sun yeah, all the time.

Speaker 2 (21:25):
Yeah, So that means your front yard is northern exposure.

Speaker 1 (21:29):
Yes. Yeah. I don't do much in the front other
than some bushes around the porch and up the grass
and keep it maintained. I mean, it looks nice to grass.

Speaker 2 (21:37):
But the ba have a tremendous amount of luck with grasses.
Ornamental grasses. Okay, they're so hardy, they come back, they
look beautiful, they turn some of them will like turn
red in the fall, and then they grow pretty quickly
and you can divide them. So I find those to
be like very very satisfying, especially if it's like a

(21:58):
hybrid of something that be like a Michigan native. If
you if you can find like a hybrid that gets
like you know, pink, you know, flowers or something on it. Those.
I like to mess around with that. So I'm not
like a native gardener, but I'll look at like what
might traditionally grow here and then sort of branch off

(22:20):
from that with something that has been hybridized to have
maybe a you know, tricolor leaf or something.

Speaker 1 (22:26):
Okay, I'll definitely look into that.

Speaker 2 (22:30):
Yeah, you have to send me pictures.

Speaker 1 (22:32):
Well, yeah, I will once if I get rolling, I'll
send you some. I'll shoot you some pictures of what
I got going on. It'll be in a month or two. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (22:41):
Our gardens look great in August usually.

Speaker 1 (22:43):
Right, Yeah, they do. And you know it's funny too,
because the vegetable garden, you know, it's like I plan
and i'll plant that end of May, and it's like
the thing is still going strong in September.

Speaker 2 (22:58):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (22:58):
I mean literally, one thing you didn't mention. I'll move
on with something else about these gardens. I did. In fact,
the last couple of years i've in my garden, I
left all the leaves. I've raked all the leaves too,
because I heard that before, and I left them all
in the garden. And as the snow comes around, really
the leaves, it kind of just becomes part of the ground, right,

(23:20):
So it probably provides good nutrients. And yeah, yeah, maybe
I should do that along the fence line where I
have trying to plant these these flowers for at the
end of this year. Maybe.

Speaker 2 (23:30):
Yeah. Yeah. I also love vines. I'm like anything that vines,
and I've had some. I mean I've had I have
these too. So I moved here and went to a
Oh and don't like, don't buy your plants at like home.

Speaker 1 (23:47):
Depot or no, I go to it.

Speaker 2 (23:49):
To a nursery because I've done that. I've I've gotten
the exact same plant from a nursery and it costs
five dollars more and put another one filled in with
another one from home depot and the home deepo one
doesn't survive. It just doesn't. I mean some of the
growers are the same, so that's not always true. But yeah, yeah,

(24:09):
it's but it's kind of fun. I mean it's it's
a bit like cryptids or the paranormal in that it's
like you're never fully done. You're never going to fully
have all the answers. You're always going to be experimenting.
But I went purchased a couple of wisteria vines which
are just absolutely beautiful. And I grew whysteria all the

(24:31):
time when I lived in San Francisco thrives there, So
I just put them in my along this arbor next
to my house. Just well, these are the nursery. They
should be fine. And they have now really just exploded
to the point where last year I had people pulling
over and knocking on my door and saying, I didn't

(24:52):
know whysteria group here? What kind of wisteria those? And
It's like, I don't even know. They're just the kind
I got at Bachman's. I mean, remember, for.

Speaker 1 (25:02):
Sure in the nursery, I've done the home depot, I've
done the lows. I usually get those though, for the
like the annuals for the deck, you know, they do
last all year, and I take care of them, you know,
every day and such.

Speaker 2 (25:15):
What about Oh now I got to tell you something though,
since we're just talking about general plants. Okay, so I
just got an incredibly interesting plant, and I need to
do a couple of little videos. But there is now
something called a glow in the dark petunia. I'm not kidding.
They're kind of expensive right now. I had to do
do like a pre order at my local nursery. I

(25:37):
got an email about it there. And they're what they
look like when you buy them, are just white petunias.
They just look like beautiful, kind of smaller flowered white petunias,
very attractive trailing, just like a regular petunia, which, by
the way, petunia's ward off aphids and some of the

(25:59):
other like squash bugs and things like that, so there
actually can be really beneficial to put in your around
your vegetable garden.

Speaker 1 (26:06):
Right.

Speaker 2 (26:07):
So anyway, and then what happens is they're bioluminescent, so
they glow like they literally glow. So the other night
I came home, I'd just gotten them, left them in
the sun all day. I got home and my porch
light was on, so I had to go and like
turn the porch light off. And I think as the
porch light was on, it messed with it a little bit.

(26:27):
But several of them, I need to bring them insight
into a dark room to really like show how they glow.
They literally glow, like, yeah, they're glowing the dark. It's
it's absolutely amazing just glow in the dark petunias.

Speaker 1 (26:41):
I'll have to look into that. That'd be extremely interesting.

Speaker 2 (26:45):
They're pretty incredible. I'd never I've never heard. I mean
there's there's but there are bioluminescent plants. You see that
a lot in especially in like the Kingdom of Fungi,
Like in the Mushroom Kingdom. You see like certain kinds
of fungus that will you'll be walked through the forest
and you'll see something blowing. But somehow they used and
I've been researching, like how how did they do this?

(27:09):
Because the website of the plant grower is pretty vague.
You know, it's just like whatever they glow in the
dark and it's been hybridized, and it's like, okay, well
what how somehow they took that ability that a plant,
like a fungus has to be bioluminescent and bred it
into these petunias, a very common lovely flower that you know,

(27:31):
it's just an annual, so it's a very expensive annual.
But man, I mean, if you could have a glow
in the dark plant, it's.

Speaker 1 (27:38):
Just like, yeah, that's got I'll get with you.

Speaker 2 (27:41):
You gotta get one, Yeah, you gotta get one.

Speaker 1 (27:43):
Yeah, I love that's Yeah. My head is thinking where
to put it already. Well, can you talk today about
maybe it's in the book or probably it is. What's
the mysterious thing? You know, because we all being there,
we're like a paranormal show, and right, what do you
know about like the mystical gardens or what about some

(28:05):
of these that care Maybe what's like one of the
mystifying I don't know, folklore behind them, I mean they
is you know, we always talk about like the fay
the fairies around gardens I've heard, and of course the
elementals of the forest. Is there any relations with the
paranormal or anything in your experiences?

Speaker 2 (28:28):
Yeah. So in my book, I as I kind of mentioned,
like I set it up so that you sort of
go on this journey as you read from the beginning
to the end. And instead of organizing it by just like, okay,
alphabetical all the plants that I like or whatever, and
it's not even all the plants I like, it's just
the ones that hit my criteria, I decided to organize

(28:51):
it by the types of gardens that you might find
in a fairy tale. So you start out the book
in the Queen's garden, and this is where you will
find sort of like Tula and roses and apples and
things that have been cultivated, and we're sort of like
a treasured thing that you might have to serve to
the queen. And once you finish that, you go around

(29:12):
the corner to the cottage garden, and that's the vegetable
garden and the herb garden that the cook grows. And
then you continue on and that's and you kind of
you know, go round the bend and the crooked path
and you end up behind the iron gates of the
Witch's Garden. And that's where really the most mystical probably
the plants with the most sort of like mysticism behind them,

(29:34):
because they're pretty much all poisonous, and any plant that's
poisonous has a lot of magic and a lot of medicine.
So any plant that can cause harm can also heal,
and so that's pretty fascinating. And then of course after
that you go through the gallivanting through the meadows, and
then you end up in the forest, so I have
a number of trees in my book. And then eventually

(29:56):
you end up at the sea or the lakeside, and
I have some aquatic plants there. But when you get
to the Witch's Garden, I mean that is really the
place where you find. I mean, one of my favorite
plants is the fox glove. I just absolutely love the
fox glove and the foxglove here, let me read you
some of the names the common names that fox glove

(30:16):
goes by, because it's a pretty impressive list. Oh and
actually even before you get to fox glove, another extremely
mystical plant is aconite that's also known as wolf spain.
This is the plant that has the ability to turn
you into a were wolf and is also thought, in

(30:37):
small doses, might actually be an antidote to wear wolf ism.
And it's said in Greek mythology, you had Cerebus, the
three headed dog that sort of guards the cave into
the underworld. It's said that aconite sprout sprouted from his
spit like he was frothing at the mouth, and his

(30:58):
spittle fell into the ground. And I grew out of that.
And so that's why it's always has that strong association
with dogs and with with with wolves. The medicine that's
in it it, actually there's there's very many very similar
sort of like they call them alkaloids that are in
these plants that you know they're psychotropic. They cause they

(31:23):
cause hallucinations, they cause mania, they cause like total mayhem, death, vomiting, nausea,
all kinds of things. But also have those same alkaloids
have been used and synthesized since time immemorial as medicine,
So the Greeks knew of this right like Socrates poisoned

(31:45):
himself with hemlock because he knew that hemlock would kill him.
Hemlock has also been used in conjunction with some other herbs.
The Greeks used to use that as anesthesia to knock
someone out. If you don't give them too much and
you mix it with other things, you can knock someone out.
This is not a recipe, mind you, This is just

(32:05):
the you know, mythology of it. But you can. You
can in the medical history of it. You can knock
someone out and that will allow you to perform surgery
on them without it causing like, you know, the trauma.
But I want to get to Fox Club because that
has so so many lovely connections with the fairy world. Okay,

(32:26):
I could probably just tell you. I don't even know
I'm looking it up. So it's called it's called fox glove.
It's called fairy glove. It's called Witch's thimble. It's called
fairy cap uh, it's called which is a cap and
I think also there's another fairy fairy bells. That's the

(32:48):
other name. And fox Club has one of the reasons
it's called fox Club. This is Digitalis perporea. That's the
most common one. That's the purple one. Most gardeners love.
Fox Love's absolutely beautiful. It's a hearty plant, but it
is toxic. All parts of it are toxic, so you
do want your animals to eat it. And it's actually

(33:09):
derived from foxglove. From Digitalis is a medicine called digoxin
or digitoxin, and this is used to this day as
a treatment for heart palpitations, heart attacks, and other heart ailments.
Today we have a synthesized version of this, but it's
from it's from fox love. And actually during World War

(33:32):
Two there was a huge shortage of this very vital medicine,
Like this is a medicine you take when you feel
like you're going to have a heart attack and it'll help,
it'll help regulate your system. During World War two, most
of the medicine at that time, a large amount of
the medicine at that time was produced in Germany. The
Germans have a long history of homeopathy and long medical history. Well,

(33:55):
for obvious reasons, right, you couldn't get medicine from Germany.
So in Britain they formed this thing called the British
Vegetable Drug Committee, and it was formed by the government,
the British government, and they basically had like scientists and
doctors working on one end, and they got the entire

(34:16):
population of the island to start growing and harvesting foxglove.
And basically they had all the women and children and
elderly growing this poisonous plant, harvesting it and bringing it
to a processing plant. And they were able to make
enough of a supply of this medicine that there was

(34:38):
not a shortage of it during World War Two in England,
so kind of miraculous. So that's it's like medicine medical history.
The reason it's called fox Club is because it's said
it had so fox Club is like highly associated with fairies.
That's where it gets the name fairy cap and fairy bell.

(34:59):
It's said when a fox glove bends, it's because the
fairy queen is passing by and it's bowing to her.
So when your flower bends over and it gets these
lovely little bell shaped flowers on a stalk, and inside
the fox glove there are all these markings that are
like black and white and kind of modeled in there

(35:20):
and almost looks like some sort of mystical writing. The
term foxglove comes from the fact that foxes and fairies
have a long standing relationship, and the foxes would actually
put the they could slip the little the fairies gave.
The story is the fairies gave the foxes fox glove,

(35:42):
and you put the little bell caps of the flowers
on each of your four feet of the fox and
then foxes can slip undetected into the chicken coop or
the barnyard or the gardener wherever they're trying to like,
you know, steal their food for the night, and you
can also they'll the foxes have the ability to like

(36:05):
sound the bells of the fox glove at a frequency
that only other foxes can hear in case like the
farmer's coming out. So that's pretty delightful, right, I mean,
this is like so amazing, And then foxes that this
is really prevalent. It's prevalent in British folklore. It's really
prevalent in Scandinavian and Nordic folklore. Foxes are super sacred

(36:28):
in like Finland and Norway. And it's actually the Aurora
borealis is called foxfire because it's said that it comes
from beautiful northern lights, come from the tail of a
mystical fox that flies across the sky. And so if
you look that up, if you do a Google image
search of like foxes, foxfire, northern lights, you'll get all

(36:52):
these artists renderings that are really beautiful of like this
magical fox tail that's coming across the sky creating the
Aurora borealis. So like, that's one of my favorite. It's
already such a beautiful plant. It has this life saving
medicine in it, and all parts of it have this medicine.

(37:13):
And on top of it all, it has this incredible
connection to the fairy kingdom.

Speaker 1 (37:20):
I like that. Yeah, I mean see, it does seem
like because as I mentioned earlier about how you know
gardens the force, it just breathes life. And I can
see where I can see where we can have all

(37:41):
these anomalous you know, entities and phenomenon just going around
our energy is right? Does that make sense if you, if.

Speaker 2 (37:48):
You want to believe in the possibility of the paranormal,
look no further than the plant kingdom, or the or
or the ocean, and you will see some sort of
bizarre thing discovered that we'd never heard of before that
probably contain some kind of powerful medicine. So the belief

(38:09):
in the unknown, the idea that we know everything is
proven directly wrong by the natural world, right like constantly. So,
and I think that that, you know that there's there's
a similarity in the appeal or the you know, the
appeal to the supernatural world, like they are part of
that supernatural world, and they actually kind of straddle the

(38:32):
worlds in many ways. If you think of plants like that,
they straddle the world of humans and the unknown, the supernatural,
like they are the conduits for some of those supernatural creatures.
Where we'll send the vampire history is actually totally directly

(38:52):
what we think of as vampires is directly influenced by
two specific plants. One of them, you'll probably guess, garlic, Yeah, yeah, yeah, right.
And garlic of course has tons of antibacterial and anti
viral and even they've even studied it, like like anti HIV.

(39:15):
It's got really really powerful constituents in it. And you know,
back when there weren't medical journals, and folk wisdom was
how you treated ailments, and ailments were also considered evil entities.
It just makes sense that, you know, if you're really sick,

(39:36):
it could be because a vampire bit you. We're going
to give you garlic, or we're going to try and
ward off this illness. I remember my mom giving us
whole clothes of garlic when everyone at school was getting sick,
just chomping down that garlic. So of course there's that
relationship with garlic being anti evil, right, the evil being

(39:57):
today what we might consider more of a disease.

Speaker 1 (40:00):
Yes, and so back in the day then really quickly
disease and illness was associated with evil.

Speaker 2 (40:08):
Or frequently Yeah, yeah, I was considered you know, I mean,
people didn't have any medical knowledge. It wasn't really until
the sixteen hundreds when they started operating on corpses that
they really started developing. So the body snatchers came into fashion.
They didn't really see you just thought this was going
to be about gardening, but we're going to get into

(40:29):
bodies catching. Yeah, we're going to varlify this don't worry. Yeah, so, yeah, so,
and that is also true. I mean, you see that also.
I discovered that frequently when I was researching my book Fairies,
Pukas and Changelings, you know. And you'll see that in
like movies and stuff where something like the baby is

(40:50):
sick or deformed and everyone thinks it has to do
with someone made a bad deal with the fairies or
the devil or whomever, which you have to take then
the stories with the grain of salt, knowing we know
so much more about like the development of a fetus
and things like that now, you know. But yeah, so

(41:11):
in the book, actually the excerpt for that chapter. So
the way it's arranged is each chapter has a collection
of plants that would likely appear in the garden at hand,
and Garlic's in the cottage garden, of course, But the
and then I have I'll tell you, like I tell
you the common names, I tell you the botanical name,

(41:32):
and then I tell you the medicinal properties and the
magical properties, and then I get into the lore. And
so with garlic, of course, like we have all this
this law associated with vampires and it being an antidote
to were wolves and vampires, so I have in the story,
and that is actually an excerpt from Dracula, and it's
the part where Van Helsing is who's Dutch, right, So

(41:55):
he's like calling for these flowers to come over from
this hot house over in the Netherlands, in Holland, and
he makes uh, so what I think, what we think
of and like in modern movies you'll see like a
wreath of garlic cloves, yea, or like a braid of
garlic cloves, but actually in the story it's garlic flowers.

(42:17):
So garlic flowers, you know, they're related to onions and
alium and chives, they're all in the same family. And
they get beautiful white flowers, little like little bell flowers
that pop up. And so what he does is, you know, Lucy,
she's like, you know, obviously dying of being attacked by
the vampire. So she he brings these flowers in and

(42:37):
so there's this whole in Lucy's diary. She talks about
these curious flowers that Van Helsing has brought her and
how what a strange smell they have. And what he
actually does is he does wreathe. He he weaves a
wreath for her and places it around her windowsill, but
it's of the whole plant and the flowers, and he
puts a bouquet of these. They smell really right, they

(43:00):
smell like garlic, but not quite. There's all kinds of
wild garlic. It grows all over almost in almost every well.
I would say in the Northern Hemisphere. There's a wild
garlic that's indigenous to the United States. Different wild garlics
different to different places in the United States and Canada
and England. Ireland has its own wild garlic and a

(43:23):
lot of you know, Stoker was Irish, so there's a
lot of vampire mythology in Ireland as it is, so
it was considered this antidote. But I just really liked
that it was the flower and not quite like what
you're thinking as the like, you know, wearing a wreath
of garlic. But it just ties directly in with the
idea that you could ward off illness or whatever this

(43:45):
evil might be. It makes sense that it would also
be warding off a vampire, right.

Speaker 1 (43:52):
Yes, And of course we all remember from that story
where it was always the housekeeper came in and removed
the garlic from around the windows and.

Speaker 2 (44:05):
Took the vases because they smelled funny and.

Speaker 1 (44:07):
Took it off around her neck, right, and then.

Speaker 2 (44:11):
That's what happened.

Speaker 1 (44:13):
A part of the undead yep. Yeah, you know, and
really it was funny though, because it was not funny.
But when he watched the movie and read the books,
it was working. I mean there was no trouble from
a good old Dracula r.

Speaker 2 (44:31):
Yeah, it was working. It was warding him off. Yeah, yeah,
he was I think coming outside her window but he
couldn't get in. Yeah, it was working. So and then
speaking of that, the the other plant that has a
huge influence on what we think of today as the
as vampires like no sfaratu is actually corn. So yeah,

(44:54):
it's kind of a curious story. So corn is indigenous
to North America and and has been grown as a
major food crop. I mean the Maya were cultivating it
thousands and thousands of years ago from basically what looked
like a grass, and they really perfected some horticultural practices,

(45:16):
what six thousand years ago, five thousand years ago. So
one of the things with corn, and this is how
it's prepared traditionally in indigenous cultures and a lot of
the seeds that ended up back in Europe came from
the East coast right, so like Cherokee specifically, they have
a long standing history with corn. When you cook corn,

(45:41):
you basically have to kind of like break it down.
So in indigenous wisdom you would use ash. You can
also use a form of lime, but they would frequently
the Cherokee have it's like a burnt piece of some
of wood. It might even be an ash tree, and

(46:02):
this is mixed in with the corn as you're cooking
it and you're making you know, you're cooking it down
into like a hominy mash or you're making you know,
you're making like cakes out of it or whatever. So
what that does is it actually breaks down the corn
so that it releases some of its vital nutrients, specifically niacin.

(46:25):
So we got once fourteen hundreds fifteen hundreds colonizers have
come over. They go back to Europe and especially in Italy,
which is a lovely Mediterranean climate and was also is
historically a much poorer country in the European countries, corn
is becomes incredibly popular. You can grow it really fast,

(46:46):
you can harvest it really fast. I mean you've seen that, right.
We're in the Midwest corn's ready in like three months.
Oh it's and then you have this massive food source.
But the indigenous wisdom was ignored and so so repeatedly
people were cooking down corn and it was a filling meal.
So if you were poor and you could like feed

(47:08):
your whole family basically polenta, your set, right, it was like, okay, well,
what was happening is that for there became an epidemic
because they weren't using that ash or the lime to
break down then to break down the barrier to release
the niosin, a disease formed called polegra, and polegra is

(47:32):
a niosin efficiency and the symptoms are sensitivity to sunlight,
anger or mania, extreme hallucinations, and an extremely pale color.
Oh wow, so it directly led to there was a

(47:53):
vampire craze in Italy during this time, and so of
course that was based on other folklore. But they were
seeing people basically becoming living vampires before their eyes as
this disease affected them. And if you even look it up,
there are some very old images describing you know, peleegra

(48:14):
and it looks like no Sharatu sunk in cheek.

Speaker 1 (48:17):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (48:18):
So Stoker of course knows all of this. He's got
all of his you know.

Speaker 1 (48:22):
The.

Speaker 2 (48:24):
Lore from Romania and the Carpathian Mountains and all of
the like folklos. And I also found out that there
was a very influential Scottish female, a Scottish woman who
wrote about specifically Transylvanian folklore, which would have been was

(48:48):
published in the late seventeen hundreds or the yeah, the
late seventeen hundreds, early eighteen hundreds, So Stoker would have
had access to this. So he had all that folklore.
Of course, we know the influence of Glad the Impaler
being kind of the influence for Lad Dracool. But then
you also have the history of vampires and what they

(49:08):
look like and how they transformed, and you know, so
all of those things kind of fed in together because
Dracula was so influential on what we think of as
a vampire today and still is so. Yeah. So corn
the humble, your humble.

Speaker 1 (49:26):
And you're right about the corn. I could make a
meal on the sweet corn with butter, one of my favors.

Speaker 2 (49:32):
Fairly cooked, right, just flash flash in the boiling water
and you're good.

Speaker 1 (49:38):
No, right, I don't overdo it. I like an ice
and juice because you can overdo it, believe it or yeah, and.

Speaker 2 (49:42):
Then it's chewy. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (49:45):
And usually toward the end of the year, when I've
got my last harvest, we have a My brother's got
a much bigger yard and I do mine sizable, but
he's got a nice, big fighter pit and we do
like the old Milwaukee commercial used to be many remember that,
the beer and it was the lobster fishermen on the beach.

(50:06):
So yeah, we make a big pit and we go.
We all save up our money throughout the year because
it's not cheap. We get the crab, right, throw it
in the vat with the corn, pull that corn out
to sit there with the case of O Milwaukee. Yeah right,
you know, not that I recommend it, but you.

Speaker 2 (50:26):
Never have a nice light pills and wash it down,
yeah summertime.

Speaker 1 (50:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (50:32):
Yeah, Well, so the next time you eat corn, you know,
think of think of vampires. It's it's like, that was
a really fun chapter to write because there's like there's
a lot of images when you're researching it, and it's
it's pretty fascinating.

Speaker 1 (50:51):
No, it is. You're right up my head with the vampire.
So all that all that stuff and the corn the
before I forgets you to the garlic. So I tell
you I use a lot of garlic that where I'm
like garlic breadth all the time, but I add a
little garlic and everything, and I especially like the garlic clothes,
you know, stick it in a steak, you know, and

(51:12):
just sometimes I overdo it. But like anything else, practice
try yeah.

Speaker 2 (51:18):
Yeah, but you shouldn't bite me over for dinner because
that sounds great.

Speaker 1 (51:22):
It's pretty good, it's real good. I'll do it one day.
Yeah we Uh. In fact, my doctor about three years
ago told me garlic. Try you add garlic a little
bit of garlic every day to whatever you eat, you know,
And I'm like, yeah, so I've been doing it, and
I don't know if I could tell a difference. But
what you brought about today I knew about prior, and
uh yeah, good for the heart, yeah, you know. And

(51:46):
doesn't corn have a Someone mentioned say corn didn't any nutrients,
doesn't have silk or something with silk weed.

Speaker 2 (51:53):
Corn has tons of nutrients, it's just not all of
them are unlocked. And you don't have to like you
can just steam your corn and I'll still get I
think corn has let's see because I probably put exactly
what corn has in the book. It's got vitamin C,
it's got nyasin. Okay. Also, look at this beautiful Look

(52:14):
at the illustration of the corn. I've never seen a
more beautiful corn illustration. That cool, It's pretty nice. Okay.
I think I need my glasses though, because I'm an
old lady nowse Okay, So what do we got here? Yes,

(52:34):
corn contains protein, vitamins A, C and B, antioxidants, and fiber,
all essentials for a balanced diet and healthy nutrition. Unprocessed
corn is considered a healthy carbohydrate that can aid in digestion,
help reduce inflammation, and even lower cholesterol. An important traditional medicine,

(52:54):
This is what you were talking about. An important traditional
medicine in many cultures is the use of corn silk,
also known as stigma stigma matus, to treat urinary infections,
overactive bladder, kidney stones, edema, and bedwetting. Corn silk is
made from the stigmas, a yellow thread like strand from
female flowers of maize. It contains iron, potassium, and zinc,

(53:17):
among other minerals. I can't tell you how much fun
I had reading all kinds of I read so many
medical reports, and it was delightful because I would research
the folklore and then I would research or you know,
I'd be researching them simultaneously. And it was so interesting
how many of those medical journals draw on, especially with plants,

(53:42):
they'll draw on some sort of local wisdom, right, They'll
be like, Okay, so this is traditionally used in this culture.
Let's figure out what is happening on a molecular level
and see if we can replicate that in a test study.
And it's absolutely fascinating. I just like, that's why it
took so long to write it, because there was just

(54:03):
and you kind of compile the different all the different
studies and yeah, so it's it's really a miracle plant.

Speaker 1 (54:13):
It is. I'm learning new things every day. A great
show for I love. And sure I got her book
pinned at the top of the chat roof, though, for
those that are interested, just go clicking out and take
your right the Amazon and check it out. I can't
wait to get my copy. Varlo.

Speaker 2 (54:26):
Yeah, roll, you were supposed to get it before the show,
so yeah, well follow up on that.

Speaker 1 (54:31):
But that's okay, Yeah, something to look forward to when
I'm out gardening.

Speaker 2 (54:35):
Oh, yeah, you can read it. Yeah, and it's hardcover,
so you can take it outside. It'll, you know, it'll
be pretty dirty.

Speaker 1 (54:42):
And I like that gold and gold so nice.

Speaker 2 (54:45):
And you know what else, just to plug it one
more time. Yeah, it's only twenty dollars. It weighs like two.

Speaker 1 (54:52):
Pounds eighty eight pages too.

Speaker 2 (54:55):
It's a hefty it's a hefty book for twenty bucks.

Speaker 1 (54:58):
For twenty bucks, that's a great deal. You find thirty
five bucks forty bucks.

Speaker 2 (55:03):
Yeah. Oh, coovers are so expensive and sometimes I just
can't take it. I have to have the hardcover of something.
I mean, you get a hardcover novel like Stephen King's
new collection of short Stories. I paid forty dollars for that. Yeah,
I'm okay with that. Yeah, that's a treat, you know,
it's a treat.

Speaker 1 (55:20):
Speaking Stephen King. I cannot get through the book. It
I just can't.

Speaker 2 (55:24):
Oh really, I read that when I was a teenager.
I shall read it.

Speaker 1 (55:28):
Well, I had it well way years ago.

Speaker 2 (55:31):
Gets kind of confusing when he starts to explain what
it is, and it's this sort of like strange Cuthulhu
like love crafty and spider creature. It does get a
little confusing in that part, it's very that's a very
thick part of the book. And up until then, everything's
very character driven, and there's these really interesting characters, like

(55:53):
the main character who lost his kid and stuff or
his kid brother, and then it gets to that part
and you're just like, huh.

Speaker 1 (56:00):
I always yeah, and there's there's way more characters in
the book than there isn't a TV show or the movie.
Maybe I always quit. It's not because I'm scared, but
always end up stop reading right around the part where
the guy skins himself in the bathtub.

Speaker 2 (56:19):
You know, I mean, I honestly I read Stephen King
at such a young age. I saw The Shining when
I was like three, kidding.

Speaker 1 (56:27):
Well, listen to this one, this Shining. So I wasn't
enough age to get into the R rated movies, but
just old enough for mom and Dad would drop me
and my friends off, or was my brother at the
movies by ourselves before by ourselves to me and my
brother very you know, craftily. It was the movie Airplane,

(56:49):
I think, coming out.

Speaker 2 (56:50):
Yeah, yeah, which I have to get to a comedy
or a Flash Gordon or something like that, which, by.

Speaker 1 (56:56):
The way, it's a hilarious movie. Didn't have to see
airplane though, because we knew that The Shining was playing
and it only started like eight minutes after, so it's
person in there. We went into the airplane, you know,
and then we get it was like a madening. Now
a lot of people assume it might be, and of

(57:18):
course we're petrified we're sneaking into an rated movie.

Speaker 2 (57:21):
Yeah, yeah, it's a scary movie.

Speaker 1 (57:23):
Yeah. We got in there, and then we got in
and we we had almost a front row seat, you know,
we're in there watching it. Very scary and is scared
to be the most of course, the girls on the
bike's red room, red room. Yeah yeah, and then the
beautiful woman in the bathtub.

Speaker 2 (57:40):
Okay, listen, I've got a story about that specific scene. Okay.
So I'm little. It's on. It's on HBO or something,
and I'm like, I can't have been more than four,
because i wasn't in school yet. I'm three, four years old,
and The Shining's on. It's showing on HBO, and we're
my she we're watching with my sister, and I were

(58:01):
watching with our parents, and it gets to that scene,
the bathtub scenes. He goes into the suite and it's
a beautiful woman, and so my mom because the woman's
naked and he's starting to make out with her whatever,
my mom covers my eyes because it's a sex scene, right,
but she covers my eyes like this, so I can

(58:21):
like kind of see through, right. But then the thing
is is she sort of takes them away as the
woman transforms into this horrific corpse and is this laughing
corpse of an old lady laughing in the bathtub. So
that was okay for me to see, but I couldn't
see the beautiful naked lady seriously traumatized. I think that

(58:43):
was a moment that really formed me. You know what
I have to say, Like that movie is really scary.

Speaker 1 (58:51):
It is.

Speaker 2 (58:52):
But the book, and I don't say this lightly because
I think that that's one of the best horror movies
ever made. The book is scarier.

Speaker 1 (59:02):
Really.

Speaker 2 (59:02):
It's not really long. It's not one of his like
really really long stories, because I do better with Stephen
King's short stories. I think he's as genius short story writer.
But in the book, one of the things that's the
scariest is you know how they go in the maze? Yes, Okay,
So in the book. It's not a maze, it's it's
topiary hedge animals and they move closer and closer to

(59:29):
the hotel and it's really scary. It's really scary. Again
there's a plant.

Speaker 1 (59:36):
Story, right, yeah, and again it's booked. I'll probably you
talk me in againning which will sit over there. IM
a guracious reader as a kid, like between like ten
and even late teens, early twenties, because I always had time,
you know, And I know it's an excuse. We can
always make time for one hour a day. I get it,
but there's also one hour day for this, that and

(59:58):
the other. But yeah, I still love but I love
collecting them anyway, just to have you know.

Speaker 2 (01:00:02):
In more recent years, I've also gotten a little bit
more into audio books. I find that I don't So
this is what I do with audiobooks. I don't I don't.
I don't find like a book I really want to
read and listen to it on audio. What I do
is I listen to a book that I've read before,
and I note, like there's a real scary audible version

(01:00:24):
of Dracula with Tim Curry and Alan Cummings, and it's
like just the way they read it. I listened to
it falling asleep or in the garden or whatever, walking
And it also does something for me as a writer.
It kind of when I listen to a book, I'll
I can't always follow the plot like I would if
I'm reading it, but I pick up on the structure

(01:00:48):
or the phrasing that the person uses to describe a scene,
just the descriptive quality, and I find that that I'll
hang on to certain things. So I kind of use
it almost as like a writing tool and a relaxation tool.
But I like to listen to books that I already
am familiar with because that I'm not like, huh, what

(01:01:08):
just happened. I'm actually able to like just dip in
and out of the story as I space out and
do something else, right, Because that's no yeah, that's always
a problem.

Speaker 1 (01:01:19):
I gotta tell you quick story. I was watching I
was listening to Brahm Storker's Dracula. I was on a
YouTube channel audio version, and it was on my phone
and they have super chat and stuff like that, you
know that's on it like most a mounetized shows have,
but I so I had the phone was kind of

(01:01:40):
like on my chest and I'm just listening to is
a very good adaptation. And oh I ended up falling
asleep and they went through like twenty chapters. Yeah yeah,
for eight hours. And I wake up though, and I
can't find Listen for my phone because I must have
been moving around out and I knocked the phone off

(01:02:01):
my shot. You know what happened on my phone where
it hit it kept clicking the super chat button and
I ended up with a BILVERHRRI and eighty books. Oh yeah, yeah,
so everybody listening, thank you for the super chats. But hey, listen,

(01:02:22):
if you fall asleep watching the show, put your phone
somewhere else one hundred and eighty dollars and you can't
get the money back. So the guy goes wow, and
I get a comment from the guy, Wow, thank you
so much for your awesome generosity. I'm like, dude, I
just found your channel, but I'm not even a subscriber.
I just happened to listen.

Speaker 2 (01:02:43):
Oh my god, that's funny.

Speaker 1 (01:02:44):
Anyway, Hey, before we move on, there's a couple questions,
really briefly on the plans that I I tried. I
didn't get all your guys questions. I can't read them.
All you guys as I'm moving through. But little Patty
asked Barlow, what can you tell me about the wild lettuce?

Speaker 2 (01:02:59):
Oh yeah, So I actually almost had a whole chapter
that was just going to be greens, and in the
end a couple of the what we're going to go
in that chapter kind of had their own breakout sessions.
One of them was cabbage. Surprising number of stories about cabbage,
and the other is a plant called rampion, which I

(01:03:20):
can talk about in a second. But I do have
a little tidbit about wild lettuce in here. Let me
just find it because it actually has one of the
reasons lettuce. It didn't have as many stories about it,
but it has a ton of like medicinal properties. So
I found that very interesting. Let's see, there's turnip pumpkin
going backwards, be after let us would be after. Oh wait,

(01:03:47):
it's in the cabbage section. Actually I put it in
the cabbage section. So forgive me for a second here
and we'll get to the wild lettuce and cabbages and
lettuce both in terms of folklore. There's quite a bit
about like harvesting ahead of cabbage under a full moon,
and the shape of it and the size of it

(01:04:08):
or the size of it's like leaves can influence who
your true love will be. So I'm just looking for
this little bit about the wild lettuce because I know
I had it in there. Okay, So it comes from
Culpepper's HERBYL Cope Nicholas Culpepper's Complete Herbyl and that that's
like this really fantastic, super old resource that has to

(01:04:32):
do with all manner of herbs. It was written in
the sixteen hundreds. It's available for free on many different places,
including Gutenberg. So wild lettuce so some of the some
similar things as with cabbage. It's magically equivalent of like
prosperity if you think of like a leaf of lettuce
like like you know, money, it's abundance. But it also

(01:04:56):
has a lot of vitamins C and K, and it's
very high in potassium. And I don't have a lot
of other I have research that's not in the book
about wild lettuce, but that's mostly what I know about
it off the top of my head.

Speaker 1 (01:05:11):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (01:05:14):
Oh yeah. And then pumpkin, Yeah, the pumpkin. So pumpkin,
So you would think that the story that I would
include about pumpkin would be Cinderella. But that's not the
case at all, because pumpkins are again indigenous to the
United States, and so the original story of Cinderella does

(01:05:34):
not have a pumpkin. It actually has a different plant
at its center, and that's the hazel tree. She gets
a branch of a hazel tree from her father, plants
it on her mother's grave, and that tree grows, and
from that tree the bird, that magical tree, the birds
drop down her gown and her her shoes for each

(01:05:57):
night of the three nights of the ball that Cinderella
goes to. But pumpkin itself is, of course pumpkins in here,
because that's one of my favorite plants. That's my favorite
plant to grow. If you've never grown pumpkins.

Speaker 1 (01:06:09):
You need a lot of area, don't you for that?

Speaker 2 (01:06:12):
Yes, But if you've never grown pumpkin, I have a
great recommendation, and that is to grow the little baby
boo pumpkins, those little tiny pumpkins, because they don't need
as much space. You can vertical garden pumpkins. So I've
been doing that and I actually have this like landscape
plan right now that involves pumpkin arches so that you
just can like sit underneath the pumpkins, so you can

(01:06:35):
vertical grow them and that gives you more space. The
challenge I've found with vertical growing pumpkins is getting them
to grow. So my pumpkins all like to grow, let
me see, is never okay, So my pumpkins all like
to grow west to east. They just in my garden
and sometimes east to west, but pretty much always west
to east. And I put my pumpkin arches in so

(01:06:56):
that they would grow north to south, and it didn't work.
I couldn't get them to go up and over. So
this year I'm reconfiguring my pumpkin arches. But the other
thing is they don't take as long to fruit, little
tiny pumpkins. So if you have a shorter growing season
you live in a northern climate, for example, you can

(01:07:17):
plant them and they'll start to produce fruit in about
sixty days. Also, just on the gardening front, pumpkins only
produce the fruit from the female flowers, and you'll probably
get ten male flowers to every female flower. So your
best bet is to plant plants around your pumpkin patch
that attract bees so that you're like something really prolific,

(01:07:40):
like a salvia or something like that that just gets
tons of flowers, so you're attracting bees and then they're
more likely to pollinate. You can hand pollinate and the
female flowers look like a little clad hand inside. That's
how you can tell, and that's what forms the pumpkin.
But as far as some of the medicinal properties of pumpkins,

(01:08:02):
they're used to treat gastrointestinal disease, a digestion, treat intestinal parasites, wounds,
heart disease, urinary tract infections, and even cancer. The flowers
are used in wound treatment and to treat mail in fertility.
Pumpkin is us probably because of all the male flowers, huh.
And you know, like squash blossoms are delicacy that are

(01:08:24):
widely eaten, especially like you go to Mexico and you
get like these amazing case ideas with like squash blossoms
in them. Pumpkin is also used in pet care, treating
digestive disorders and dogs and cats, and as an anti parasite.
I remember actually my mom saving the pumpkin seeds, roasting
them with garlic and feeding them to our dogs to
prevent heartwarm As far as the lure goes, I mean

(01:08:46):
I think you've got everything right. You've got the great
Pumpkin Linus is great pumpkin patch. You do have the
Cinderella the retelling of the Cinderella where the magical pumpkins.
They look like magical fruits. And let's see what do
we have for magical properties. We've got from one pumpkin.
There are hundreds of seeds. So therefore, pumpkins are an

(01:09:07):
excellent plant to use in spells for prosperity and fertility.
Carving them into lanterns. Of course they're now used to
sort of trick the devil or goblins and ghoules away.
But of course again pumpkins are indigenous to the United States.
Halloween began in Ireland. So before there were pumpkins, they

(01:09:31):
carved turnips and they carved them as lanterns to sort
of like light the way. There's still a tradition today,
and you can do this yourself at Halloween. You have
a big bonfire on Halloween night or around sowing, and
from that bonfire it's almost like I mean in the
Celtic religion that's New Year's that's actually when the year

(01:09:54):
ends and begins again, and so you have a big bonfire,
and you take a cold from that bonfire, you put
it in your lantern, your jack a lantern, and you
use that to light a fire in your own home,
assuming you have a fireplace, right, but you use that
to light you bring it into your own home to
ensure safety as you go into the darkest part of

(01:10:16):
the year. So yeah, so there's a few tidbits about pumpkins.
Is that enough?

Speaker 1 (01:10:24):
Get the book for more.

Speaker 2 (01:10:28):
Sparks?

Speaker 1 (01:10:29):
Yeah, Sparky's Paranormal and Outdoors Varla. Steaming or cooking to
super soft, does that allow get more stuff?

Speaker 2 (01:10:40):
I like the way you phrased that, get more stuffs
out of the corn. So the real secret to getting
unlocking all of the nutrients from the corn is to
add lime or ash. If you're cooking it down, you
still get the vitamin A and the vitamin K and
the vitamin C from it. If you're eating it raw,
you'll still get that right like fresh off the car.

(01:11:01):
So it doesn't it's not that you won't get you
it's not that you're going to get pelegra because the
other thing is keep in mind, right, we now get
nyasin from a lot of other sources. Well, the problem
with it is that that was people's only source of food.
It was their primary source of food, and they were
there for nutrient to fish in. So there's a couple

(01:11:24):
different ways together. You put you actually put like burnt
wood into your into your like stewpot as you're cooking
it down and you're trying to make a hominy. And actually,
if you if you do a Google search, and I
believe you can find it on YouTube. Actually, if you
look on YouTube, you can search for I think it

(01:11:44):
was a Gordon there's this Gordon Ramsey show where he
travels around to travel show and he travels around the
world and learns about local ingredients from a local chef
and one of them he goes too. I want to
say he's in South Carolina. I can't remember off the
top of my head. But he goes and he meets

(01:12:07):
this Cherokee woman and she shows him the way to
cook corn down. And so if you're if you want
to see the actual process or a way to do it,
I would highly recommend looking for that or just searching
that up, because I'm not I don't have a recipe
for that, I just know the facts. I hate cooking. Actually,

(01:12:27):
I ete everything raw.

Speaker 1 (01:12:30):
Oh, vegetables. Yeah, do you like your vegetables? Wraw?

Speaker 2 (01:12:33):
I like most things raw.

Speaker 1 (01:12:35):
Well yeah, well my steak though close to all. I
like my steak medium, rare.

Speaker 2 (01:12:41):
We like it running.

Speaker 1 (01:12:43):
Little blood. Yeah, I'll go figure right, Eric fry Is
will let us relate it to the devils let us.

Speaker 2 (01:12:50):
Okay, So I'm just gonna do a really quick look
up here, because I believe devils lettuce is a common
name for a nettle. That is what is popping in
to my head. So here's the main issue with common names.
And I include common names in my book, but I
always include the botanical name. The main issue with common
names is that now we have plants from all over

(01:13:11):
the world growing all over the world, right, and so
anything that stings or is bitter is usually or poisons
you as often gets the devil title to it. Sure,
but I think devil's let us. So that's a common
name for probably quite a few things that I think
Devil's lettuce, in my memory, is actually one of the

(01:13:34):
common names for nettles. And the great thing about nettles,
which I talk about, I have thistle in my in
my book.

Speaker 1 (01:13:41):
Let's see while you go on, I do that dog thing.

Speaker 2 (01:13:44):
Yeah, yeah, go do the dog thing. Oh Devil's letter. Well,
of course Internet says devil's lettus is marijuana. Also, I
think devil's lettus is one of those terms that is
used for a lot of different plants. But devil lettuce
is also a term for stinging netle, and interestingly, stinging

(01:14:05):
netle is a really really great medicinal plant can be
used to increase blood flow. Thistles and nettles the root
of those are compounded and dried and compounded down into
something that you can take to detoxify your liver. You
can boil them and make a tea. It's really good

(01:14:25):
for your circulation and things like that. But it's not
something that you would necessarily enjoy touching or harvesting or
like chewing on, right, because it has all those tiny
little tin things. So, but yes, devils let us is
also slayg for marijuana. It's slaying for apparently, according to

(01:14:48):
the Internet, it's also slaying for money. So you know,
all kinds of things. I'm gonna pop over here to
the Oh, I hear you coming back.

Speaker 1 (01:15:00):
I see it yet, I told you.

Speaker 2 (01:15:02):
Yeah that's quick.

Speaker 1 (01:15:07):
So, yeah, you had another little pamphlet your Shaw on
the earlier. Oh yes, it's very interesting. What's you go ahead?

Speaker 2 (01:15:15):
This is Shadowsine. So some people may be familiar with
Jeff Blanger's work. He's been working in the paranormal for
twenty something years. He's a wonderful writer, public speaker, and
a couple of months ago he launched something called Shadowsine,
and basically he wanted to just start publishing sort of

(01:15:36):
long form stories with full editorial publishing control. So he
wrote the first one, which was about the Bridgewater Triangle
in Massachusetts. The second one was written by Richard Stepp,
who's a wonderful writer, and he wrote about ghosts and
creatures of Cornwall, England, and it's lovely. It's got mermaids

(01:15:57):
and ghosts and honey pass everything.

Speaker 1 (01:16:02):
Next time you're out, we go to the Mermaid Show again. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:16:05):
Mermaid Show is a great summer show. Yeah yeah, yeah,
Well you can totally segue into like all of the
sea creatures and lake creatures and yes, and then so
for issue number three, I think he's on issue four now,
but issue number three of Shadowsine I wrote and it's
called Mark Twain's Wija Mystery. And this is the story

(01:16:28):
of a woman named Emily Grant Hutchings who in nineteen
sixteen was a regular user of wija boards and spirit
boards and attending seances, and during one of these, the
medium made contact with the spirit who claimed to be
the ghost of Samuel Clemens aka Mark Twain, and this

(01:16:52):
progressed into a relationship because supposedly the spirit kept asking
for Emily, calling her that Hannibal girl. She was born
in Hannibal, Missouri, which is also where Twain was from. Now,
of course, this is six years he died, and I
think nineteen ten, so this is six years after he's died.
So she embarks on this rather extravagant year long project

(01:17:17):
in which she and the medium using Ouija board, transcribe painstakingly,
one letter at a time, two short stories in a
novel that are said to have been written by Twain's ghost,
and there was always a secretary present to kind of

(01:17:37):
keep track of the words, and she would supposedly do
very light editing. In nineteen seventeen, she found a publisher
for the novel. It's called Jap, her own Jap being
short for the main character's name, which was Jasper, and
it's the story of like this kind of young guy
who comes into town and starts apprenticing at a news paper,

(01:18:02):
and it's it's a very like Twain Twain like story.
So unknown to Emily, during that time, one of the
one of the Grand Puhbas of the Society for Cyclical Research,
started sending letters to Clemens's daughter, Clara, Twain's daughter Clara,

(01:18:23):
asking her to confirm certain details that were coming out
of these seances. And he did a series of these
letters and to the point that it really irritated Clara.
So Emily finds a publisher, this man named Mitchell Kennerley,
who is based in New York, and he was a
publisher of Esoteric Ephemera, and he publishes it and it's
a full length novel. It's like a real big old book.

(01:18:47):
And the Clemens and the Harper and brothers, who are
the publishers of Twain, got wind of it and entered
into a lawsuit basically a cease and desist for Kennerly,
saying that not that Twain's ghosts couldn't have done this,
but that they own Twain. They created Mark Twain, not

(01:19:14):
Samuel Clemens, the pen name Mark Twain. And so it
became a copyright infringement lawsuit that went all the way
up to the Supreme Court. Meanwhile, daughter's totally in on it.
She gets all the royalties, and she's irritated about this
guy harassing her about her dead father right like years
after he's passed. You can only imagine. And so in

(01:19:36):
the end the lawsuit, there's all these fabulous articles. Jeff
did this incredible job designing it, so we have like
images that's Clara and her father, that's the book itself.
He and his and his friend Frank Grace, who's a
wonderful photographer, went to the Salem Witchboard Museum and photogra

(01:20:00):
after the book that was in the private collection of John,
the owner there. But there's all these articles where they're
debating it's like there's some quote that's like the existence
of life after death is not going to be debated
by psychics and mediums today, it will be debated by lawyers.
And there was even talk of bringing in a board
to see if she could make contact to see But

(01:20:22):
in the end they ended up settling out of court,
with the basically the ruling being that Kennerly had to
destroy all copies of the book well, Kennerley did not
destroy all copies of the book, and there's a few
articles out there saying he was a bit of a
scamp or kind of I like to think of him

(01:20:43):
as a rebel, kind of did his own thing right,
and it was intimidated by Harper and brothers. So we
know that there's copies because John has a physical one.
There's a fasimile that has been scanned and is available
for free on Gutenberg, so there are copies out there.
So not all copies were destroyed. And in the course
of researching this, it turns out she's not the only

(01:21:03):
one who wrote a novel or wrote a book claimed
to come from Twain's ghost. There's two other ones. There
was one that was published a couple of years before hers,
but I think it was self published and no one
harassed the daughter, so it must have just kind of
gone under the radar. No one cared about it. But
this one stood to have some was published in nineteen seventeen,

(01:21:26):
and it stood to have some legs because at that
time also there was a resurgence in popularity of the
spiritualist movement because of what was going on in history.
We were entering into World War One, and so spiritualism
was very popular, began in the eighteen forties, was very
popular post Civil War mourning people wanting to like getting

(01:21:48):
into spirit photography and trying to make contacts, and so
there was a resurgence of that in the early teens
in the United States. So it was more of a
threat to them. And then there's just like so much
more to the story. But this is available now. It's
you can get it. Really, you can only get it
either directly from me or possibly Jeff at live events,

(01:22:09):
or you can go to Shadowzine dot com and you
can order it. You can order there's a fourth one
that's out now. I don't have a copy of it,
but it's it's all about Texas hauntings and that's Greg Lawson. Yeah,
so very cool thing. It's just it's fun to be
part of something that's really creative. And you know what
it's like to try and get something published. It's hard.

Speaker 1 (01:22:33):
It's hard to.

Speaker 2 (01:22:34):
Get through all those gatekeepers, it's hard to get to
an editor. And self publishing is it was a much
stronger choice for people these days, but even that's fraught
with some difficulties because you have to know how to
format and you have to, you know. So it's just
it's an investment, and it's writing is hard enough, but

(01:22:56):
then to get somebody actually published and then buy it
on top.

Speaker 1 (01:23:01):
Of that, right, Yeah, I've been through those avenues and
of course minor Amazon, and I did it all just
self taught, and I know that it could have been
a lot better. I didn't hire an editor. I did
everything myself.

Speaker 2 (01:23:14):
Yeah, but you learn along the way. And that's what
Jeff's done with this. I mean, he has years of
writing and editorial experience and now he's publishing, and so
he's collecting story he's collecting authors from that he admires
in the paranormal community and having them tell one story.
So that's what when he asked me to do it,
I said, I have the perfect story, because I have

(01:23:35):
a story. I've touched on this story before. It's in
my Paranormal Parlor book in a small section. But there's
so much more to the story, you know, from how
it started to how it ended, and I'd always wanted
to actually write it as a full piece, and so
he gave me the opportunity to do that. So there's
more to the story. Even there's a plant. It ends

(01:23:55):
with a plant. So just trying to stay on brand.

Speaker 1 (01:23:58):
There, Well, I do you have two more questions to
stay on brand that I kind of if I miss
some of you guys questions, I do apologize. Here's one.
Sparky again asked, what is the plant that is secure
for stinging netles? Oh, stinging netles that.

Speaker 2 (01:24:14):
Always grows near it. I don't really know exactly what
plant that is, but I do know that plantain is
a plant that takes away the sting of plant of
stinging netles and also like sunburns or wounds and plantain,
I mean, it grows wild in all of our lawns

(01:24:35):
and you can just mush it up and put it
on there and it'll take the sting away. But there
may be another plant or many other plants that do
that that that you're thinking of, but I know plantain does.

Speaker 1 (01:24:46):
That very good. And final one here andres what about
the white orchid.

Speaker 2 (01:24:53):
So I'm not sure if you're kind of exactly what
you are asking about in terms of like the white
or there's that whole white like ghost orchid that was
at the center of the plot of the orchid Thief
that grows the in Florida. So maybe that's what you're
thinking of when you think it, because there's there's you know,

(01:25:14):
hundreds of different kinds of orchids that have white flowers,
but the ghost orchid might be the one you're thinking of,
and that has a lot of mystical and magical properties
because it's kind of elusive. I mean orchids in general,
in terms of working with orchids for magic, they are
not prolific. They they're rare, right, They're still perceived as rare,

(01:25:38):
even though we have them more commonly, and so because
of that, they sort of have this other worldly element
to them. The flowers are long lasting. I think they
make a great addition to any kind of magic where
you're really trying to tap into, like manifestation. And then,
of course, well, my favorite orchid, and it's probably your

(01:26:00):
favorite orchid too, rob is the Lady Slipper. It's native
to Michigan, it's native to Minnesota, it's native to all
over the United States. It has a beautiful, beautiful flower.
It looks like something out of Alice in Wonderland's Garden.
And they grow wild in the forests where we live.

Speaker 1 (01:26:20):
Why you know what I look at you.

Speaker 2 (01:26:22):
Have a different favorite orchid. Oh wait, actually, my real
favorite orchid is the dracula orchid.

Speaker 3 (01:26:30):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:26:30):
Google Dracula orchid. You'll see why. It's black and it
has these long tendrils that come down. It looks like
a bat.

Speaker 1 (01:26:37):
Oh wow.

Speaker 2 (01:26:37):
Yeah, it grows in the It grows in the highlands
of the Andes Mountains. It's a highland orchid.

Speaker 1 (01:26:44):
Oh yeah. Definitely gave me some great ideas to look up. Really,
I mean seriously, I don't have to replay.

Speaker 2 (01:26:51):
This now, listen to it while you're gardening.

Speaker 1 (01:26:55):
Yeah, there you go, everybody, Thanks for coming in, Thanks
for all for all of those book enchanted plants. It's
pinned at the top of the chatroom, so if you
guys are interested, go check it out. Also, Varla, where
can people find you? Media wise?

Speaker 2 (01:27:11):
Yeah? So, my website is Varlaventura dot net and I'm
I'm very active on Instagram, probably most active on Instagram
as Varla Ventura. At the exact present moment, my Facebook
page has been eradicated for reasons I have I have
yet to decipher, so you can't find me there right now,

(01:27:32):
but normally I'm there. And then I just want to
say that I'm in a couple of weeks, so sort
of the last two weeks of May going into the
beginning of June. If anybody is in Massachusetts, check out
my website under appearances, I am doing several different talks
about enchanted plants at some of the libraries around the

(01:27:54):
kind of greater Boston area. And I'm also doing a
Dining with the Dead dinner with Ron Kolloch of New
England Ghost Chronicles, and I'll be talking about the Emily
Grant Hutching story. So that's starting May twenty first, going
through June fourth. I'm going on a wild solo book
tour and yeah, please come out and say hi to me.

(01:28:15):
I need it would be terrible if no one showed up.

Speaker 1 (01:28:19):
Well, you'll need to turn out Dining with.

Speaker 2 (01:28:23):
The Dead Dead, I mean that's oh yeah, and you
get like you pay for the ticket includes you get
like a starter, a meal, a dessert, some kind of drink.
I think you have to buy alcohol separately, but you
should buy alcohol for sure. And then Ron is the host,

(01:28:43):
and then I'm this special guest speaker and I'll be
doing a whole presentation about Emily.

Speaker 1 (01:28:48):
So yeah, well again, great show. Villa thanks everybody for
coming in. Hit that like button on your way out.
Of course, appreciated robab hang out for just two minutes
after the show, get something from you and then uh
and then yeah. So once again, thank you for coming
on in. And I got to thank everybody for coming
in and watching the show this afternoon. I know everybody

(01:29:10):
is busy during the afternoon, so for taking out your time,
and all you people that are listening in that in
the chat room, thank you as much as well, because
you're just as important. It does help us all grow.
Hit the like button on your way out and I
will see you guys. Today's Tuesday, Thursday, Friday night bm
OUR story Time. I don't know if I'm gonna do
that Fridays. I'm putting together The were Wolf Chronicles, which

(01:29:34):
is a three part series. I'll be doing Fridays, flock.
I can't get that high pitch anymore. Forland. I used
to be able to do the were Wolf. I can't.
I could do the.

Speaker 2 (01:29:45):
Growl growl.

Speaker 1 (01:29:48):
Right, yeah, yeahy nice this nice song. Let's do the
dog Man Ground.

Speaker 2 (01:29:53):
Yeah that feels like yeah, the next Werewolf of London.

Speaker 1 (01:29:57):
You know, there you go. I love that song as well,
thanks everybody. Thanks Farlow, I'll see you back station right.
This is the future.

Speaker 2 (01:30:22):
Revolution.

Speaker 3 (01:30:26):
The Crossing Rooms Conference launch in September nineteenth and twentieth
then will doc and Richmond, Missouri. This is already being
called the event of the year folks. With an unprecedented
list of speakers in the special guest, two days of
crypted UFOs and paranormal presentations, along with a celebrity filled
ghost hunt newt and Greek gallery reading, venders and film screening.

(01:30:47):
This promises to be both educational and fun. Go to
event bright dot com to secure your tickets and vendor
slots before they are all abducted. They're going fast.

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Brunch with Bigfoot Michigan Rob - Ep 134 - Varla Ventura | Enchanted Plants | Mystical Gardens | Gnomes

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Brunch with Bigfoot Michigan Rob - Ep 134 - Varla Ventura | Enchanted Plants | Mystical Gardens | Gnomes