Not every plant is your friend. Not every plant is good. I know this because I’ve been researching the history of poison gardens and have planted a modest one in my small Sydney backyard.
A poison garden contains only toxic plants, which could kill humans if consumed in varying quantities. The concept of a poison garden grew from the 16th to 17th century history of herbalist or apothecary gardens, where plants and herbs were grown for medicinal purposes, mostly by doctors and monks.
These early gardens flourished at a time when herbals, hefty reference books on medicinal plants, were produced. An example is John Gerard’s 1500-page book The Herball (1597), which included English plants and herbs but also exotics collected from the “new world” (colonised countries such as the Caribbean islands). Within these apothecary medicinal gardens, specialist planting areas were sometimes allocated to exotic carnivorous, aquatic or poisonous plants.
