Garden Necromancy: Summoning Spirits Many, many plants have historically been associated with the dead and the spirit world; often these were grave goods (offerings buried with the dead), or plants traditionally grown in cemeteries. The plant traditionally associated with raising the dead is the yew, but there are many other plants which are associated with [...]

Floromancy Like plants, most men have hidden properties that chance alone reveals. —Maxims La Rochefoucauld For ages, man has looked to plants for help in making decisions or using them to attempt to tell the future, especially in love. Nowadays, it’s mostly children who use flowers or plants this way–for instance, the game of picking [...]

The Bloud of Hearbes This was so weird, I just had to put it on a page. I found this recipe in A Garden of Herbs, by Eleanour Sinclair Rohde, who in turn found it Delights for Ladies by Sir Hugh Platt, which was published in 1594. (This is reproduced exactly as I found it [...]

People Die So That Plants May Live Note: I am NOT advocating human sacrifice as a method to increase garden yield. I just wanted to make that clear. In times past, in many different cultures all around the world, human beings were sacrificed in the hope that their blood would ensure the harvest would be [...]

The Mint Pool This is an idea that probably properly belongs in the Botanic Cathedral, but I thought the idea was so lovely that I’d give it a page of its own. The mint pool was a part of the garden before the ninth century, often part of the cloister garden. Helen Noyes Webster, in [...]

Pomanders Here’s a easy little craft item that is both *gothy* and *herbal*. Pomanders have a long and glorious history. They were once carried by the populace because physicians considered them protection against disease. The well-to-do carried intricately designed hollow metal balls filled with scented herbs (these expensive notions were favorite gifts to give on [...]

So You Want to Make a Zombi… Almost everyone has heard of zombies. Most people have even heard that zombies really do exist, even if they bear little resemblance to their shambling, brain-eating fictional portrayal in Night of the Living Dead. The creation of these real zombies is the result of administering a “zombi poison”, [...]

The Garden in Gothic Revival Gothic Revival, an architectural movement in the 18th and 19th centuries, began with temples and porticos in English landscape gardens. These gardens were often used as laboratories for architectural innovation, since the expense involved in constructing small structures in the garden was far less than that required to construct an [...]

Plants Suitable for Planting in Cemeteries Many cemeteries today offer perpetual care, and there is little contribution a family can make to a gravesite. But smaller and more rural graveyards still allow, or even need, the involvement of family members in the landscaping around a loved one’s grave. Goths that are interested in performing community [...]

Natural Black Dye for Hair and Clothing Herbal Black Hair Dye Here are two recipes I found in World of Herbs, by Lesley Bremness, which are natural formulations for darkening hair. I haven’t tried these, so I can’t vouch for their effectiveness or safety. I also suspect that these would only be useful if your [...]

A Mummy’s Herbal mummyThe mummy is a popular figure from horror movies, but of course there are many cultures in the ancient world that mummified their dead. The best known of these “real” mummies are probably the Egyptian mummies. The ritual involved in making a mummy, especially the mummy of a wealthy person, was long [...]

Everybody knows that red roses mean “I love you”. FTD and the rest of the floral industry have made that abundantly clear. Fewer people know that almost every culture, at one time or another, has developed a “flower code”, wherein almost every bloom known to man has had some meaning attached to it. The Victorians, [...]

Adonis was worshipped as a god of vegetation, or at least a god associated with vegetation, in the Hellenic world. (I won’t discuss the radically differing viewpoints on this.) Adonis was born of Myrrha, the myrrh tree, seduced both Persephone and Aphrodite with his androgynous charm, and died young, killed by his ineptitude in a [...]

Gardening by the Phases of the Moon This is intended as a brief overview of the concept of using the moon as a guide to gardening. Most devotees of this practice are people who believe in astrology, but you don’t have to believe in astrology to believe that the moon has influence over earthly events–after [...]

Vampiric Plants Giant man-eating Venus Fly-traps? Night-flying daisies? Blood-sucking rutabagas? No, not quite. pumpkin with fangs While there are lots of plants associated with repelling vampires, I’ve found only *one* mention of vampiric plants. The Islamic gypsies of Bosnia (Kosovo-Metohija region) believe that pumpkins and watermelons, if kept too long in the house, can become [...]

Vinegar of the Four Thieves If you plan on robbing people dying of the plague, you might find this recipe handy. It was used by a notorious band of men who stole from corpses or broke into the houses of the dying while the Great Plague raged in Marseille in 1720. They thought it would [...]

Halloween Plants When people nowadays think of Halloween, they think of pumpkins, since the pumpkin motif is seen everywhere, children love to carve jack’o'lanterns out of pumpkins, and the color of pumpkins–orange–has become one of three main colors of Halloween (along with the white of ghosts and the black of witches). However, lanterns at Halloween [...]

Gothic Sundial Mottoes You’re a brave goth, and you’ve finally realized that in order to garden, you’ll have to venture out in the daytime, at least occasionally. Despite this slight bow to necessity, your garden will still reflect your character, and a time-keeping device that’s been outdated for centuries would be perfect. Unfortunately, the sundials [...]

Beans Skinner comments on the bean’s “ancient disrepute”: If one reads the records truly, it begat insanity; it caused nightmare; to dream of it meant trouble; even ghosts fled shuddering from the smell of beans. The goddess Ceres, in doing good to men, set apart the bean as unworthy to be included in her gifts. [...]

Of Pumpkins Most people have heard the legend of the Jack O’Lantern; nevermind that originally there were no pumpkins in Europe and this legend must be a recent one. Jack, a blacksmith, was drinking one night in a pub and ran into the Devil. Jack offered the Devil his soul in exchange for a drink, [...]