Queer botany

[Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g]

I know this was touched on a few months ago in relation to an exhibition at Kew, and I didn't understand it then either. Recently we went to the National Trust Tudor property Sutton House in Homerton (well worth a visit, btw). The adjacent tiny parcel of land was donated to the NT on condition that this former scrapyard was turned into a garden, which was done a couple of years ago. Very nice it looks too. However, it is apparently an example of queer botany. Why? Can anyone explain this to me in extremely simple terms? Does it simply mean that some of the people involved in designing and planting it identify as queer and a few of the plants have assocation with gay icons? It surely isn't implying anything about sexual reproduction, is it?

https://www.queerbotany.com/projects/platinum-garden

Your garden sounds fabulous, woollyhatter.
And thank you Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g, it looks like a place that's worth a visit.
The only thing I have to add is that slugs are actually hermaphrodites, so should obviously be welcomed in that garden.

Some slugs and snails also seem to be into kink 😲

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_dart

Is it time for me to share my video of slugs mating?

Feel free to skip it if I've bored you with it before. 😁

Fascinating!

Wow. Fascinating indeed, but it's put me off my lunch.

Here you go

Forgot the auricula thing.

I got this in my head when Rachel Reeves was saying they were going to grow the economy.

Wow!

I nearly posted that video, it's extraordinary and strangely beautiful. You have to wonder how that evolved. I bet a...?... gastropologist could explain the steps.

Leopard slugs are native to this country. Has anyone, say when walking their dogs late at night, ever got a face full of randy slugs?

Note to self, don't walk under trees after dark during the spring and summer.

That's so impressive woollyhatter ! And I love the lesbian subtext.

I originally phrased that 'I love your lesbian subtext' but changed it as it was too open to oo-er missus interpretation - not that anyone here would ever indulge in such immature silliness of course, it would never even cross our minds..

woollyhatter that is an amazing garden.

My late DH did this sort of thing, using 'found' items e.g. bread trays, paint pots, old sofas etc as plant tubs. He also planted wild flowers, and what most people call weeds (flowers out of place). He wasn't queer (though some called him eccentric he rejected this label, kaftans, silk hats/shirts, flowing shirts, buckskins, military coats, tharbs, academic gowns etc were his style, thanks, along with 3-piece suits and fedoras and Harris tweed) but on the contrary entirely male (apart from no interest in the internal combustion engine - painter, writer, poet, youth worker, hill farmer). I don't think it's a 'queer' garden, it's like mine, a 'found' garden. Label is just virtue signalling. Is that OP in the picture? Nice dress and jewellery, if so.

That might be too much for MN. Aren't slugs hermaphrodites - or is that worms?

Many famous gardeners have been women, and traditionally the garden, most often the veg garden, was the province of the housewife. And gardens have been made all over the world - by non-white men, mostly.
NB Lady garden...? Now that would be interesting.

Christopher Lloyd, John Treasure, Cedric Morris, Graham Stuart Thomas, Harold Nicholson, V.Sackville West ( married but both gay as well) their two lady gardeners….okay ‘white’ but certainly not straight.

They are all dead , I’m not naming the living.

And no one cared.

I Hope they are growing carrots

That's not the point though, is it?

That's a lovely garden @woollyhatter and so very, very clever and funny. 😂 Thank you.

Is the same thing true of Sartre?

Satre taught me, and a whole class load of 15 year old girls, the French for wanking. Never forgotten that.

What I get out of it, after much thought, is that they probably don't need to spend too much on fertiliser, on account of being so far up their own arses.

Why do you need to understand?

There's a group called Queer Botany who, it sounds like, are exploring the LGBT+ community connecting to plant life.

You don't get that - that's fine. You don't need to understand it or be part of it.

It's a completely harmless project for people who are interested in it.

Lot of homophobia in the first two dozen or so posts. I guess in the desperation to be The Best Transphobe On The Feminism Board, the mask has slipped for a fair few posters. Good to see your true colours, folks, thanks for exposing yourselves!

The subsequent posts about haploids, slugs mating, and actual queer botany are great! Once you get past the homophobes pretending they’re ‘just’ transphobes.