Kelly House

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Kelly House A small Bed & Breakfast in a Big House. A perfect base to explore Devon & Cornwall. Host of the Woolly Weekend and Poison in the Garden

12/10/2026

Thank you to for producing such a lovely book. The kid really enjoyed looking for the lichen and reading the facts.

11/10/2026

Thanks to for putting on a fantastic day at . Discovering new and old fungi.

10/10/2026

Another gardening job off the list.
It only took ten minutes.
I have been putting it off for so long
Now the drawing room smells of lovely lavender

Save the date. Time to save your seed for next years Seed Swap.
10/10/2026

Save the date.

Time to save your seed for next years Seed Swap.

04/10/2026

Yew Berries, known as Aril, are the only part of the Yew tree that is not Deadly Poisonous.

The Aril has a seed that has the highest amount of the deadly poison Taxine in it. As little as 5 seeds could kill a grown adult, so even with the Aril being edible, just damaging the seeds inside will poison you.
So, are Snot berries worth dying for?

I personally think NOT. But I also think cow parsley is not worth eating!

28/09/2026

Conkers and Cordite

Conkers were turned into acetone, which was used in the manufacture of cordite. This smokeless propellant was used in bullets and shells in ww1.

Children were paid 7s 6p to collect hundreds of conkers and acorns.

Conkers is a game play in Britain where a hole is drilled through a conker, and it is threaded onto a string. You take it turn to hit the other person's conker. The one who smashes their opponents conker wins.

20/09/2026

With saffron bulbs becoming widely available, make sure you know their poisonous look alikes.

There have been multiple poisonings where people have mistaken Meadow saffron(Colchicum autumnale) for true saffron (Crocus Sativus.).

Both have the common name of crocus and both flower at the same time of year, but the bulbs for Colchicum are much larger. It is also surprisingly more expensive.

True Crocus are part of the Iris family, while Colchicum, aka autumn crocus, is part of the lily family. All are deadly poisonous.

Saffron Crocus (crocus sativus) is the only crocus that has an edible part, which is the stamens.
The rest of the crocus, along with other true crocus, is poisonous and will cause gastric upset.

Saffron buns have been a staple of Devon and Cornwall bakeries since the 17th century. Devon and Cornwall, and Essex were the few counties in Britain that grew saffron.

You only get 3 saffron strands per bulb/flower. Hence, it being so expensive as they still have to be hand-picked. It takes 150 bulbs to make 1 gram of saffron. As a result, saffron is only slightly cheaper than gold. But now you can grow it in your own garden

13/09/2026

This week, I listened to an interesting interview with Dr. Mark Spencer who is a forensic botanist and the author of Murder Most Florid: Inside the Mind of a Forensic Botanist.
One thing he said was brambles are one of the plants that indicates where bodies are buried.

Look forward to reading his book if I can find it in stock.

06/09/2026

POISON:
a substance that is capable of causing illness or death of a living organism if consumed, inhaled or absorbed through the skin.

Discover the perilous side of an English Country Garden!

Well, that post went crazy Thank you to everyone who took the time to share their Toxic Squash Syndrome poisoning storie...
04/09/2026

Well, that post went crazy

Thank you to everyone who took the time to share their Toxic Squash Syndrome poisoning stories.

Hello to all the new followers

Follow for more poison plant stories and life in a country house.

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