Welcome to „Alnwick Poison Garden“: Fascinating place where "everything is trying to kill you."
By 1nf3rn0
At first, this garden looks like all the others. Its beautiful, the green and flowers are all around, the climate is ideal. In one word, the garden looks innocent and you are tempted to pick from all of the beautiful plants. But, before you get the opportunity to to so, you will notice a warning sign that clearly states: “These plants may kill you”, which makes it perfectly clear that these beautiful plants are in fact – killers.
„Alnwick Poison Garden“ is a botanical garden in Northumberland, Great Britain, and what it makes it so special is that it represents home for more than 100 of the deadliest plants in the world. Before visiting the garden, the tourists receive instructions and advises not to try to “smell” too many plants, and especially not to touch them. The garden is a part of the castle Alnwick, residence of the Duke of Northumberland, and definitely is one of the darkest (and most certainly the deadliest) tourist attractions in England. For the fans of Harry Potter, we can also mention that this castle was “acting” as thee “Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry” in the first two parts of the movie of the most famous wizard in the world.
With decades the green around the castle was usual and boring, even a bit neglected, but the things changed when in 1995, Jane Percy become the Duchess of Northumberland. The Duchess decided to re-arrange the “weed” around the castle and to turn it into an exotic garden, something different than the regular English gardens, and as an a result, this dangerous garden was born. At the beginning, Percy wanted to make a garden full of healthy plants, something like an ‘apothecary’, but one visit to Italy changed everything. There, she visited the “poison garden” of the famous Medici family in Florence, where she met a bit different flora – the one that kills, not the one that heals.
She loved the killer plants so much that, she decided to dedicate the garden to them, making it far more interesting than the ones that heal and she started working on the building the “garden of terror” which was finally opened in 2004. In the meantime, she gained so much popularity that, annually around 800.000 people visit this garden. This garden today is a home of over 100 most deadliest plants in the world, and when you see the staff how carefully tend the plants with protective gloves, you will realize that all of this is not a joke.
Some of the plants are even kept in cages, and the entire garden is under 24-hour surveillance and security.
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