Strange Garden News from 2008

The Jane Austen museum in Hampshire, United Kingdom has been forced to ban fans from scattering human ashes in her garden. Readers have made the 17th century cottage, with its typical English garden, a place of pilgrimage. Employees of the museum have been finding small mounds of ashes from crematoriums in the beds, deposited secretly by relatives honouring the final wishes of their departed. The collections manager is endeavoring to put a stop to the practice. “While we understand many admirers of Jane Austen would love to have ashes laid here, it is something we do not allow. It is distressing for visitors to see mounds of human ash, particularly so for our gardener. Also, it is of no benefit to the garden!” said West.

In Hampshire, United Kingdom a gardener’s fish was stolen. Koi wasn’t exotic enough for Peter Newman. He kept an Australian marbled catshark in his garden shed. Newman said that the rare fish, valued at around 2,500 pounds, was the only breedable female in the country. Someone climbed a ladder to the aquarium to steal the two-foot long shark.

In Picton, New Zealand, an 80-year-old woman had quite the story to share at the community tea. After several of her neighbours were evacuated from their homes after a rainstorm and flooding she found a carton containing six pots of healthy marijuana plants in her garden. A long electrical cord lay beside them.

When officers responded to her call she said, "I suspect that someone evacuating their home dumped them at my place but now they won't get them back.”

In Blackburn, U.K. Ronnie Kenyon bent down to pick up a branch and leaped back when it moved. The piece of wood turned out to be a 17-foot python. He’s unsure whether the snake turned up in his garden having escaped from a neighbouring property or if someone decided he would provide a good home for it. Kenyon keeps chickens, goats, ducks and geese. He made a pen for the snake out of chicken wire and hay bales until local authorities were able to take it off his hands.

Facebook may be one of the greatest social phenomenas in recent history but in Leeds, U.K. the Internet networking tool was used inadvertently to destroy an award winning garden. Close to 350 signed up for a waterfight at the Millenium Square garden, which received a bronze medal at the 2004 Chelsea Flower Show. Armed with water pistols and buckets, the crowds trashed the gardens. Videos and pictures of the destruction were posted on the Facebook site and footage has also been featured on YouTube.