The latest gardening craze was triggered following a discovery made by a 55-year-old furniture restorer, Michael Ford, on his allotment. He was always experimenting with drinks made from different plants and one day he tried an infusion from his winter-flowering heather. He said: “The effect was almost immediate. I had to stay in my potting shed for an hour or so before I could decently walk down the street.”
The plant is winter-flowering heather (from the genus Erica), and botanists at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Edinburgh, many of them heather experts who have recognised the source of its active ingredient, now expect it to be the next must-have plant in British gardens.
Demand is already high. Nurseries and garden centres in some areas are having trouble finding sufficient supplies as word spreads of the plant’s unexpected properties.
Read the full article on the Independent “Health & Wellbeing” section.