Merlin's Garden 🌿

Merlin’s garden is a concept garden and, in truth, I am not necessarily a fan of concept gardens, i.e. gardens which  represent an idea in such a way that everything in them, plants and artefacts alike, has to mean something. Frankly, I preferred Chelsea Flower Show when the gardens were less loaded with meaning and worthiness and just beautifully conceived and planted - and sometimes great fun like Bunny Guinness’s Wind in the Willows garden. 

So how on earth did we end up with a concept garden? And  a cross of all things? I have to concede that it was a metaphysical process not a horticultural one. I didn’t start out with new horticultural urges, I started out noticing that with every new shrub, tree, even perennial that we planted, I was starting to wonder if I’d live to see it make any size. 

     Gardens are unforgiving in the way they reflect the passage of time and the passage of time is the passage of life, so as I brooded on each new shrub or sapling I was, yes, wondering how much of life was left. And this rising consciousness of my own mortality progressed to wondering what life was really about while it was still in progress. 

I would class myself as a cultural Christian but for most of my life the idea that there could be more to existence than the propagation of a species in the least painful way possible did no more than hover at the edge of my consciousness. But ‘more to existence‘ considerations boil down to the demand for an overarching meta narrative. And a meta narrative for life inevitably involves taking a harder look at religion and faith. 

    Unfortunately, be warned, getting lured into the metaphysics of ‘being and knowing’ by sapling trees means that you run a very definite risk of ending up with a concept garden. And one that may not manifest along such grandiose lines as those of Charles Jencks’ famous Garden of Cosmic Speculation! 

    The history of religion/faith in this country is basically the Christianisation of pagans since roughly 400 yrs AD. The ancient Britons, particularly the Celtic-speaking peoples living in Britain before and during the Roman occupation, worshipped a variety of pagan deities and there was a plethora of those. 

Humans may not need gods in a biological sense, but the idea of gods meets a vast range of deep and enduring human needs - emotional, cognitive, social, and existential. And if you start finding yourself in the existential quagmire that is ‘the meaning of life’ you can follow an academic route out - read Richard Dawkins, get an opposing but still scientifically driven view from John C. Lennox, then follow it all up with The Physics of Consciousness by Ivan Antic. Having done that, I ended up in possession of more knowledge but still wondering.  

I then decided to take the Tolkien route. Tolkein believed that myths and legends were deeply embedded in a culture’s earliest sense of the world, its morality, and its cosmology and consequently resonated at deeper levels than academic knowledge.

By and large, the English have been carelessly cavalier with their myths and legends but there are a couple of outstanding exceptions, the greatest of which is the Arthurian canon. When I was young, I had a book that told the story of how each knight of the Round Table earned his seat, as it were.  I remember reading these stories again and again and, looking back, young as I was, the romance and magic of it all really affected me. 

Whilst King Arthur might be thought of as a British or English king, lets remember that any truly historic origins he could actually have had were not clad in clanking armour and plumes but as a war leader in  post-Roman Britain’s Dark Ages.  At that time the land as a whole was just a collection of independent kingdoms. The name Arthur may derive from ‘artos’ which means bear in Brythonic/Celtic or it could be an amalgam of ‘arth’, Welsh for bear, and ‘ursus’, Roman for bear.  Either way, as far as is known, the first time the actual name Arthur was ever used was in Historia Brittonum (c. 830AD) by the Welsh monk Nennius in reference to a military leader who fought the Saxons. 

And whilst the English are, typically, referred to as Anglo-Saxons modern DNA tests have shown that we still carry a chunk of Celt and a splash of Ancient Briton. The Normans added next to nothing to the genetics, the Vikings little more.

     The legendary Arthur developed as a figure of international interest largely through the popularity of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s fanciful and imaginative 12th-century Historia Regum Britanniae  (History of the Kings of Britain) and the stories and characters, including Merlin, Excalibur, Uther Pendragon, the Tintagel connection, Mordred, etc. derive from Geoffrey's Historia. The extent of its popularity was such that in 1496 Henry VII tried tapping into the legend of a unifying folk hero by naming his son Arthur, in order to help legitimise the Tudor throne.

     With just hints of bona fide history, the stories of Arthur and Merlin are a mix of old Celtic myths, medieval romance, and political propaganda and they have developed and expanded in various shades and grades over centuries. 

     Though Merlin is not explicitly called a Druid in most medieval texts, his character and functions echo Druidic roles very closely - Druids being the priestly, legal, and scholarly class of the ancient Celtic peoples and extending across much of Iron Age Europe, being  strongest  in Gaul (modern France), Britain, and Ireland. They were pretty well finished off by the Romans who saw them as a political threat. 

Merlin is a character in whom history, myth, magic, and political storytelling get very tangled up. A putative meld of Myrddin Wyllt (wild Welsh Merlin) a 6th century bard who supposedly lived an isolated existence in the natural world, talking to animals and having visions, and Merlin Ambrosius, a boy prophet - the legend of whose dealings with King Vortigern was recorded by Geoffrey of Monmouth in the Historia Regime Britanniae c. 1136. 

This meld of Wild Merlin and Merlin Ambrosius eventually became the Merlin we recognise: wizard, prophet, kingmaker, and advisor to Arthur who was capable of shapeshifting, seeing the future, and building Stonehenge with magic.

     In view of the fact that the progressive Christianisation of Britain went on to diminish any remaining power the Druids may have had, it is surprising that Druidic folklore and spiritual traditions have persisted to the extent they have.

The Druids’ deep connection with nature resonates with the modern ecological concerns and Druidism has now been officially recognised by The Charity Commission for England and Wales which granted charitable status to the Druid Network in 2010, effectively recognising Druidry as a religion. 

      Professor Ronald Hutton (University of Bristol) a leading authority on history of the British Isles in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries but, more pertinently, also an expert on ancient and medieval paganism and magic, has pointed out that a reverence for nature, celebrating the cycles of the earth and a deeper sense of spirituality are benign and beneficial facets of modern paganism. And apropos of this significant nature connection, I was just today reading an article by Giles Fraser, a journalist and priest, in which he extolled the idea that there was something magical about the island of Iona with its position ‘on the edge of the world’ that made it a thin place where the gap between heaven and earth was just a wafer, thus infusing Columba with a very deep spirituality. Saint Columba was essentially the first Celtic Christian, typically seeing God in all creation. Celtic Christianity features more mystical, poetic, and contemplative aspects than its Anglican counterpart and, as it happens, Columba was a close advisor to Gaelic warrior kings and he served as a diplomat to their neighbours in Pictland and Ireland. His blessing was welcomed and heeded. A mirror for Merlin?

Unlike the Roman treatment of the Druids, the advancing Christian front was, as directed by Pope Gregory the Great, non-confrontational. It followed instead an organised process of hanging Christian clothes on pagan festivals. Yet, though Christmas successfully and intentionally overlaid Saturnalia and the Celtic Winter Solstice, the pagan never quite died. In what is actually a form of sympathetic magic, we Europeans still bring evergreens indoors at Christmas for decorative purposes, though we may well have forgotten exactly why we started doing so. To our pagan ancestors, evergreens were evidence of the persistence of the life force during the dark months. So, as Holly and Ivy continued to be popular Christmas decor their significance was reinterpreted in a Christian hymn. 

Similarly, by the time of Geoffrey of Monmouth and the medieval romance writers, Merlin’s Druidic edge had been thoroughly softened and Christianised though he was still, somehow, allowed to keep his wild, magical and mystical edge which makes one think that the depth and extent of its (commercial?) appeal must have been recognised. 

      Our country’s legal and moral structures have been built on the precepts of Christianity yet deep in our DNA the pagan still stirs in its sleep, recognizing and acknowledging the wonder that is the natural world. Apropos of which, Saint Columba’s type of Celtic Christianityis more nature-connected, mystically poetic, and less institutional. A walk in nature for a Celtic Christian would be relational and reverential,  seeking insight into and connection with, an immanent god. Anglican Rogation on the other hand is more of a petitionary expedition with requests for something external.

      And this blending, this syncretism of early Christianity with the country’s pre-Christian beliefs and traditions is the concept I hoped to represent with Merlin’s Garden. 

    Merlin himself was an embodiment of these syncretic  processes and the Celtic Cross, is the perfect physical symbol of Christian syncretism, tying directly into the cultural progression that transformed a figure like Merlin from a pagan seer to a prophet with deep insight into Christian mysteries and who had the power, through his influence on Arthur, the Round Table and the prophecy of Galahad to set in motion the events and ideals that made the quest for the Holy Grail possible. This Christian based quest continues to capture the imagination - as evidenced by Hollywood’s Indiana Jones. 

   The Celtic crosses raised by the Celtic Christians of the Dark Ages were an acknowledged development of the old Druid standing stones. Some were megalithic in size and they were never used to mark the site of a graveyard but to mark a place of life and contemplation. The circle in the Celtic Cross distinguishes it from the Latin cross and is the key to understanding its syncretic nature. The Christian Church was reinterpreting the solar symbol, used by pre-Christian Celts to represent the sun, cosmic unity, and the wheel of the year and re-presenting it as Christ’s halo projecting Jesus as the light of the world. The Celts celebrated the equinoxes and solstices, and many stone monuments (like Stonehenge) are aligned with solar events, suggesting there’s been a long held, deep reverence for solar cycles. 

      However, there is some indication that the solar symbol per se is being reclaimed. The Summer Solstice this year, Sat. 21 Jun 2025, 3:42 am, was hugely celebrated at Stonehenge. I first saw Stonehenge during a family holiday in 1953 when I was five years old. I had my photograph taken on the altar stone. Evidently, it made a deep impression on me - even though we were the only people there. And, unless there was a nearby ‘hippy’ type festival, it was very little busier in 1980 when we lived in an army quarter a few miles away. Yet now, for its very preservation, Stonehenge is under the management of English Heritage and, such is the number of people wanting to come and see the sunrise on June 21, that the online guidance pertaining to it is almost designed to dissuade prospective visitors. This huge demand for access during solstices and equinoxes is attributed to the revival of pagan and Druidic practices.

One could deduce from this that everybody needs a henge - so as our Celtic cross was laid out on the ground in slate chippings we emphasized its central circle by using three foot high standing stones. In acknowledgement of Merlin’s putative origins we used Welsh slate sourced from a quarry in Penryn and, as their carrier would not contemplate navigating our narrow roads at any price, we had to liase extensively with the pub on the green in Twyning whose owner was most helpful - so a big shout out there. 

Evidently, the Neolithic carriers that brought Stonehenge’s bluestones from the Preseli Mountains in Wales, and The Altar Stone from the Orcadian Basin in northeast Scotland were more committed than those employed by Penryn slate quarry.

One Stonehenge investigator, a Dr Clarke, commented that the great unanswerable question about Stonehenge is ‘why’? Maybe it was an early concept garden.

      We punctuated the centre of our cross with a large river washed pebble carved out to form a basin by sculptor Sebastian Rasch. It holds aquifer water and, as the aquifer flows beneath, it could be viewed as a nod to the pagan god Nodens, god of healing, hunting and the sea/fishing. There were healing springs and ‘baths’ at his excavated temple at Lydney Place, Gloucestershire. There is no evidence of any syncretism in terms of sharing his role with Roman gods - the only inscription is ‘Deo Nodonti’.

But while no direct syncretic formula like "Nodens = Apollo" exists in inscriptions, the temple complex (architecturally speaking) plus the rituals, and the votive practices clearly show a blending of Celtic and Roman religious traditions.

     So yes, religious syncretism has certainly been going on in one form or another ever since man had gods. 

                                         THE PLANTING

The piece of ground on which we laid out the cross was an unexploited area, not big but conveniently rectangular, and it served the happy purpose of linking our long standing ‘Merlin’s Hut’ which underwent a simultaneous reinvention, and the fire pit circle to the oak tree. The Druids held their rituals in designated Sacred Groves because to them trees were not just plants but living beings of power, wisdom and spirit. 

      THE TREES

The Oak (Quercus robur)

Oak trees  are part of our national identity, straddling centuries of history and, of course, they feature alongside that other enduring folkloric figure, Robin Hood. Our oak tree is not far from the front door and I have been prone to sitting under it when in a contemplative mood, so I was pleased to be able to incorporate it into the concept of Merlin’s Garden. 

    To the Druids’ the oak was “The King of Trees”. Indeed, the very word Druid may derive from Proto-Celtic daru- (oak) + wid- (to know), meaning "oak-knower" or "wisdom of the oak". 

The Yew (Taxus baccata)

Their second favourite was the yew, which they saw as The Tree of Immortality. It is often found in ancient sacred sites and burial grounds, including around many early Christian churches (which had possibly been built specifically to usurp Druidic spiritual spaces). The yew is a tree of great longevity with an astonishing capacity for regeneration and consequently it symbolises  eternal life, rebirth, and the underworld - i.e., it’s a liminal tree that bridges life and death. 

Perhaps it is appropriate then that the anti cancer drug docetaxel (Taxotere), was first made from the needles of the European yew.

     Our big yew tree is at some distance from Merlin’s Garden and as the inclusion of yew was pretty well compulsory, we purchased a young pillar shaped yew to put at one side of the entrance as befits a liminal tree.

The Rowan or mountain ash (Sorbus aucuparia)

Called the “Druid’s tree” in Scottish and Irish folklore. Regarded as the Tree of Protection, it was believed to ward off witches, evil spirits, and malevolent forces, especially when planted near homes or thresholds.  Consequently, we planted one at the opposite side of the gate from the yew. 

The Rowan, has long been a personal favourite.  I have planted a Rowan tree at every house we have ever owned but though, as a species, it grows like weeds out of cracks in rocks on Dartmoor and in Scotland, it has consistently refused to flourish for me. It’s starting to look personal but with the advent of this project, it was incumbent upon me to have one more attempt. 

The Holly (Ilex aquifolium)

Holly is another long standing favourite of mine and we have a great deal of it in one form or another. In its native form, Ilex aquifolium, it was already present in Merlin’s Garden as a boundary hedge. A rather shabby relegation one might say for what the Druids regarded as The Warrior tree though, perhaps appropriately for a hedge, it does symbolise guardianship along with courage and resilience. Its evergreen quality is linked to endurance and protection during the dark months - hence its original pagan use at the winter solstice. 

    It was sometimes planted near oak groves as a sacred counterpart. In later lore as the holly and oak kings these two trees came to represent the solar cycles. 

The Hazel (Corylus avellana)

Just beyond the yew, we planted a group of hazel bushes. Hazel is linked to wisdom and inspiration in Celtic and Druidic lore. Specifically, it is closely tied to the Awen - the spirit of poetic inspiration in Welsh and Celtic mythology because it was believed to hold nature’s power to unlock inner knowledge and connect the physical and spiritual worlds. Eating its nuts was regarded as particularly propitious. Though hazel is theoretically self-fertile, having both male and female flowers on the same plant, the timing of their development often differs, making self-pollination unlikely. Thus, for nuts, having a group is best because it further facilitates wind pollination - the recognised mechanism for hazel.

The Hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna)

The hawthorn is not especially linked to Merlin or the Druids but there was already a self seeded native hawthorn in a very convenient position in the space and, satisfyingly enough, Hawthorn is strongly linked to the other persistent thread in English folklore - the one which influenced Shakespeare (‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream,’ ‘The Tempest’) and later fantasy writers like Tolkien. This strand  comprises folkloric creatures and spirits - faeries, black dogs (like the Barghest), will-o'-the-wisps, hobgoblins, and boggarts. 

     These beings are more rural, superstitious, and often tied to specific places - forests, moors, lakes. And hawthorn trees. And hawthorn trees that stand alone, the product of some random seeding, are the home of faeries. Chop one down at your peril. Faeries are mischievous and they don’t only live on the top of Christmas trees. The idea of tree spirits or supernatural beings residing in or atop trees is a very old concept, often present in pre-Christian nature worship. Furthermore, Hawthorne blossom or ‘May’ comes with almost an entire folklore of it own.

THE HERBACEOUS PLANTING

I wanted the herbaceous planting in Merlin’s garden to consist of British natives which would have been around at the time and especially anything significant to the Druids. A note on natives however - people have been wandering the planet for a long, long time so what sprang from this land under no other impulse than evolution and what arrived later by carrier, so to speak, means that the definition of ‘native’ might not be that clear cut.

   Grasses.

       I wanted the overall effect to be natural, i.e., meadow like, and for this I needed a grass matrix. We grew 3 native grasses from seed: Deschampsia caespitosa, tufted hair grass, which has tidy, clumping, evergreen foliage and produces delicate masses of cloud like flowers from during early summer. It doesn’t run but it does seed. 

     Briza media, common quaking grass, a perennial clump-forming grass to 90cm high with narrow, blue-green leaves. Its attraction is its nodding flower heads which appear from late spring onwards. Thirdly we grew Briza maxima. 

      The brizas were not an unqualified success. The media made its full 90cm and more and proved incapable of being self supporting once it flowered. Oddly, the maxima was smaller and, whilst attractive and tidy, turned out to be naturalised rather than native. End of Brizas all round.

       It wasn’t easy selecting the rest of the plants - we have a lot of natives elsewhere in the garden so with one eye on those least represented, I went first for those with medicinal properties and those with specific connections to Druids, especially those actually mentioned in Arthurian texts.  

     Malory in Le Morte d’Arthur (published 1485) was the main text associating Merlin with herbal and magical knowledge - mostly that which was/is associated with divination, transformation, and nature magic in keeping with his mythic role as prophet and shapeshifter. 

 Mistletoe (Viscum album)

Sacred to Druids, especially when found on oak trees. Pliny the Elder (1st century CE) wrote that Druids harvested it with a golden sickle in a ritual for fertility and healing, especially at a full moon. They used it to used to protect against poison, ensure prosperity, and bless livestock.

    It is a common plant in this area and is the county plant of Herefordshire. We have mistletoe here on several trees but it has not, unfortunately, established itself on the oak so it is not actually in Merlin’s Garden but I just couldn’t write about Druids without mentioning it.

Vervain (Verbena officinale)

      In some Arthurian romances, vervain is used by enchanters. Merlin is occasionally depicted using it in ritual or divination, especially in French and Grail texts. It was revered across ancient Europe and was sacred in both Roman and Celtic rituals for divination, protection and invoking gods.

Its was terribly useful in the TV series, The Vampire Diaries. It was also known as the herb of the cross for staunching Christ’s wounds. Not a great beauty - the flowers are relatively insignificant looking on tall stems but they don’t flop and the foliage holds together nicely.

Mugwort/wormwood (Artemesia vulgaris) 

     In some folkloric and neo-Druidic texts, Merlin is imagined using mugwort for prophetic visions or travel between worlds. Historically soldiers and travellers would place sprigs of it into their shoes, in order to ward off fatigue. It is very commonly included in herbal blends for dreams, psychic abilities, divination, cleansing, protection, and banishing. It apparently repels flies. 

      It is also known as the Wise Woman’s Power Plant and its Latin name is a tribute to Artemis, the Hellenic goddess of the hunt, wild animals, wilderness, childbirth, the moon, virginity and protector of young girls. I knew it was going to be very far from the neat silvery thing that is Artemesia Powis Castle because I once grew a number from seed with the fanciful idea that they would make a nice back line for a wild border. They didn’t. Much too bulky and unrefined looking. The best thing about the native mugwort may well be its folklore. However, we have to have at least one and as it could make six feet, we’ll have to work out how to cope with it as time goes on.

 Yarrow (Achillea millefolium)

     Used for wound healing, divination, and spiritual purification and believed to protect against malevolent forces. It was widely used throughout the Celtic-speaking world. It’s a convenient plant to grow on this dry soil and it was part of any good medieval first aid kit. It is still used in herbal remedies having anti-inflammatory, and anti-seizure properties and it seems to reduce depression and anxiety.  Some studies indicate it improves muscle tone and reduces memory loss. Yarrow has an anti-coagulant effect so people taking blood thinners should not use it.

   There are two more herbs standing by for future inclusion because of their significance:

 Meadowsweet (Filipendula ulmaria)

    This is reputed to need damp, even boggy ground so I really didn’t think it would fare well for us. It was a grievous omission so we didn’t grow any but that was before we realised that the soil in Merlin’s Garden was like none we had elsewhere. As meadowsweet is one of the three most sacred herbs that the ancient Druids used in both healing and ritualistic offerings plus funerary rites and further believed to have calming properties, I am about to order half a dozen plugs to bring on. These will replace plants that didn’t work well. There has to be aesthetics, even in a concept garden, and as plant supports are never aesthetic in my opinion (as well as screaming modernity) the over enthusiastic and floppy have to go unless they are compulsory. 

     So, banned from the classroom will be the Briza maxima and media, the teasels, the greater and lesser knapweeds Centaurea scabious and nigra respectively and, possibly, the wild carrot Daucus carota.  Yet the flowers of the daucus are so nice … oh dear. The Heracleum sphondylium or common hogweed (as opposed to the problematic giant hogweed) is tall but stood as erect as a palace guard so will retain its position as a ‘backliner’.

  Henbane (Hyoscyamus niger) 

     This is another plant that really should be in there because of its strong connection with Druids and Merlin. But it isn’t. 

Henbane is Psychoactive and used in ritual trance states. Poisonous in large doses, but known in early herbal magic. During the Middle Ages, henbane was known as the “Witches’ Herb”, one of the major ingredients used in an ointment that gave the hallucinatory sensation of flying. This gave rise to the witch on a broomstick archetype that lasts to this day. Henbane apparently induces a sense of body suspension and flight, but the next day, the person remembers nothing about it.

In measured doses it is used as a scientifically based remedy, but though I’m acquainted with the pharmaceutical use of hyoscine compounds, I just don’t like the plant. I saw it once here years ago, on an untended piece of rough ground. It pulled me in for some reason and I immediately knew what it was, in spite of never knowingly having seen a picture of it. But, in truth,at the same time as being drawn in, I felt an aversion. Deadly nightshade (Atropa belladonna) and hemlock (Conium maculatum that Socrates used to kill himself) both of which we have, induce nothing like the same response. Oddly, when I consulted a famous homeopathist in hopes of alleviating a chronic condition that the doctors had given up on, it was the first remedy he gave me. It didn’t work. 

       Sorry Merlin, I’m letting you down here. I’ll think again.

St. John’s Wort (Hypericum perforatum) 

St. John's Wort, has a rich history in folklore and herbalism. It was believed to possess protective and healing properties, with its red-tinged oil being associated with warding off evil spirits and aiding in wound healing. The plant's association with St. John the Baptist is linked to its blooming time which is  around the summer solstice.  For the same reason it was used in pagan rituals and ceremonies, with wreath making and burnings. I’ve had success with it as a homeopathic remedy for nerve based pain. In its basic form it is not an impressive plant and it’s threatening to be a copious seeder but it has to stay.

Comfrey (Symphytum officinale)

Comfrey has been around as a healing herb since 400BC and was used by the Greeks and Romans to stop heavy bleeding. In the UK, Symphytum officinale (common comfrey) is steeped in folklore and traditional usage, particularly for its healing properties. It's commonly known as "knitbone" or "boneset" due to its historical use in aiding the healing of broken bones and other injuries to the musculoskeletal system. It was also applied to indolent skin lesions. When we were in veterinary practice in South Devon we found that farmers would often bind its leaves onto animal’s injuries. Symphytums in general can be thugs but the basic model is apparently sulking with us - it threatened not to be a great survivor when we were rearing it. Note that the Bocking 14 strain used for fertiliser is actually Symphytum x uplandicum.

Foxgloves (Digitalis purpurea)

    The native species felt compulsory but, oddly, they didn’t all flower. However, weird things happened with all of our foxgloves this year. Some didn’t flower, some grew immensely tall, others of the same selection flowered at a mere foot high. Though it doesn’t seem entirely logical, I’m blaming that currently popular bogeyman, climate change, as opposed to some bizarre greenhouse mix up with seeds.

   Foxgloves have been associated with faeries and other mythical creatures, and their medicinal properties, particularly for heart conditions, have been recognized for centuries. Digitalin a glycoside compound, extracted from the leaves of the native has anti-arrhythmic properties and is still used in modern medicine to create heart stimulant drugs like digoxin.

  Sweet Cicely (Myrrhis odorata)

Also known as British Myrrh, Anise, Sweet Chervil. One of the few plants that was here in a neglected corner when we came. Though we have it in the potager amongst other places, I included it because it adds useful and attractive foliage early in the season and it will grow in the shade. 

Sweet Cicely was associated with midsummer festivals at which its leaves were added to drinks – possibly to aid digestion of the fatty foods that were consumed. During the Great Plague the plant was apparently used with Angelica (Angelica archangelica) to prevent infection.

     All parts of it are edible and it makes a good natural sweetener for rhubarb. It is useful for treating wind, as a gentle appetite stimulant,  and as a general tonic and an uplifting nervine. It is said to be useful for people who are weak from exhaustion after caring for someone over a long period of time or recovering from chronic illness themselves.

  Woad (Isatis tinctoria)

      I rather cheated with this one because of its strong but apparently spurious connection with Celts. It isn't native to Britain, preferring warmer places but it was possibly introduced through Celtic trade and migration. Its strong association with the Celtic face paint comes mainly from Roman descriptions and their familiarity with it in mainland Europe. The blue face paint on the Celts in much cooler Britain may not have been extracted from woad because the extraction process is not easy. It's plausible but not definitively proven.

   Moreover, preferring warm living conditions, it is found only rarely in certain scattered locations here - cliffs in Surrey and East Gloucestershire and, most pertinently, near Tewkesbury, which is why I felt compelled to try it. 

It has been linked to shape-shifting and some magical or pagan rituals in the past.Woad also has medicinal properties, can be antibacterial, antiviral, and even potentially anticancer. Though a less effective source of blue dye than indigo, it is still popular for dyeing natural fibres with those who want to ‘stay native’.

     It is a taller plant than I expected and moody to bring on, though when I consulted a dyer’s blog she was elbow deep in leaves.  Hum … 

     It’s a tall rather ungainly plant but it didn’t fall on its face. Unfortunately, it’s usually biennial. It is currently covered in seeds - perhaps we should sow some. Or not. Now I’ve grown it and seen it … Do we want more propagating every year? Perhaps, we’ll just leave it and see how it performs as a self-seeder.  

  Enchanter's nightshade (Circaea lutetiana) 

      Common in UK woodlands,  it arrived here of its own volition and was, within a twelve month, anointed ‘weed of the year’ for 2024. 

     I am watching it very carefully. Its name may be the most enchanting thing about it. The Latin name comes from the Greek enchantress Circe, and the plant is sometimes linked to magic and protection spells, though it is not known to have significant magical properties. It has also been used in traditional medicine, particularly in Europe, for its purported anti-inflammatory and other effects. 

 ‘FOOT SOLDIER’ PLANTS AND THE FUTURE 

The birdsfoot trefoil (Lotus corniculatus) is looking very straggly - more attractive in the lawn where the competition subdues it! The self-heal (Prunella vulgaris) is also getting a bit over excited as is the germander speedwell (Veronica chamaedrys) and the common dog violet (Viola riviana).

We’ll put in more wild achillea which we have already grown, more wild aquilegia ( Aqualegia vulgaris) which we are growing on now along with more wild primroses, cowslips and oxlips which are simply my spring favourites. We are also growing on some sweet violets mostly for the smell, and some wood sorrel (Oxalis acetosella) because it carpeted the wood behind my grandfather’s house every spring. To indulge another of my childhood memories - that of frequently using a local footpath through boggy meadows - we are now, in view of our newly discovered wetness, growing some cuckoo flower or lady’s smock (Cardamine pratensis). I’ve never had much luck with it before, but let’s see what Merlin can do about that.

To conclude - it has been an unusual experience selecting plants on the basis of herbology and magic, and the overall process has been involving and illuminating. Whilst Merlin’s Garden is hardly Iona or Avalon it nevertheless feels a little set apart. A little different.

  ‘Everyone needs a place to retreat;

 a spot where the world grows quiet enough 

 for the soul to speak'.

(Angie Weiland-Crosby)

For me, Merlin’s Garden could be it.