I've been reviewing JRRTolkien's LORD OF THE RINGS and the HOBBIT with an eye toward developing a Tolkien-themed garden. Of course there are many familiar plants named throughout his works. Not least Nicotiana. Beeches and Hollies and blackberries and 'taters and eglantine and rowan trees and willows and on and on. He also describes fantastic plants. His Mallorn, for example, seems some kind of uber-beech or Platonic form of Beech.

But my reading has raised questions on which I hope some here may share an opinion.

In one chapter a hedge is described as follows:

...high dark evergeen hedge..impenetrable wall of dark evergreen...branched right out from the roots...densely clad in dark glossy leaves like a thornless holly...many stiff upright flower-spikes with large shining olive-coloured buds.

Tolkien obviously drew from his own experience in his own climate and gardening traditions, but what plant does his description brin to YOUR mind as suitable for YOUR gardening environment?

Here is another one. The inspiration for these seems more obvious to me, but I wonder what combinations come to the mind of other gardeners. Tolkiens work makes several mentions of flowers elanor and niphredel. He always describes these flowers intermingle in green grass and blooming together. Elanor is a low grower with small golden flowers shaped like stars. Niphredil has white flowers with hint of pale green nodding on slender stalks.

Eleanor is likely Ipheion...though usually white or blue, it does come in a rare yellow form as well. The niphredel is likely leucojum, which looks a lot like snowdrops (galanthus) but has lovely little green dots around the flowers rim. They bloom at the same time for me here. The hedge could be a description of a camelia, lovely big buds, even in the winter, and stiff glossy dark green foliage.

I always thought of the Mallorn tree as being a Golden Elm. you don't often see them, but they are graceful, strong, and have that lovely golden foliage. The ones I have seen have kept their foliage in the winter till spring budding knocked them off. Either that or a Cassia Fistula, or Golden Showers tree, since that has a lovely yellow evergreen foliage and long hanging yellow flowers (the golden wood).

Don't forget the beans on poles that Goldberry grew in her veggie patch right outside the bedroom window, or Old Man Willow

What a great idea! I've always thought that some of the plants in the book, ie mallorns, are quite fantastical and can only exist in a pale approximation in reality. But go for it, and send us photos if you can!

yes, I went back and looked at the little plantlist I've been building. I already had Goldberry's beans on poles (with red flowers).

I'm sure I missed quite a few little mentions here and there and some are made in such an indirect way i didn't bother.

Still, I have a list of over 400 specific plant mentions. Some of these are multiple mentions (especially of beech, holly, pine, and fir). But that still leaves a list of 200 distinct plants.

When Tolkien describes Frodo and Sam passing through 'ITHILIEN" there is a 3 page stretch where Tolkien mentions 42 separate plant types. That blew me away. Those three pages alone could form the basis for a design , but unfortunately the list there had vaguely 'mediterranean' leaning that would not serve me well here in Zone 5-6 Pennsylvania

WBy the way, what herb do you think would make the best stand-in for Tolkien's athelas. I've convinced myself Comfrey comes closest to the mark, or maybe Costmary or Tansy.

Well, remember it was an unremarkable plant until you smelled it. I was thinking Mignonette would be a good choice, since it was a gift of Napoleon to his Empress Josephine (only truly effective in the hands of a king, athelas), and it had a lovely smell that lightened the heart. That pretty much describes mignonette to a T. Chenopodium botrys is also a fairly unremarkable plant with a lovely smell when crushed, and then there's Allheal, which could also be used.

By the way, if you are feeling quirky, did you know that Petasites is also known as Butterbur? He is a fun character, big and bustling and friendly, so it seems to fit.

I'd made note of any place names and personal names that seemed to be botanical references (the baggins family tree was rich with them and of course Thorin Oakenshield)...I'd included 'Butterbur' in my list, suspecting it to be a plant with which I was simply not familiar. Thank you for saving me some research .

Despite Thorin's nickname, oaks are rarely mentioned or described in the tales...I figured Quercus robur might suit him..."Holm Oak" is also mentioned (funny considering Ian Holm was a featured actor in the BBC radio play AND the recent films)

Wow, too cool! Sounds great, but what a formidable task. Please do post pics somewhere when you pull it off.

Were you planning on using what was being stolen from Farmer Maggot's garden? And what sort of willow do you think Tom Bombadil saved the hobbits from? Didn't sound like an ordinary weeping salix to me.

And maybe those thornless hollies were yaupon? They sure grow like Topsy here. We have to cut them out all the time, and they are definitely evergreen. No stiff olive-coloured buds, tho. Sprays of red berries. They sure do branch right out from the ground, and impenetrable is a good word, if you run up on a wall of 'em.

Yaupon Holly?...hmmm..that might also solve the mystery of where Bilbo was getting his "coffee"...er...or maybe not

Well, at this point I'm concentrating on developing a plant list cross indexed by page # and geographic region(Shire vs. Fangorn vs Ithilien). Karen Fonstad's ATLAS OF MIDDLE EARTH has been helpful in this regard. I'm including all direct references to 'real' plants. Or to botanical inspired names. Or to implied crops that would be required for production, for example, "tea" "coffee" "seed cakes"...etc.

Then I'm trying to deduce suitable substitutes for the various fantastical plants that are described. Obviously, any stand-in for MALLORN or ELANOR will only be an echo of the plants described in the books, but I want to have alist of 2 or 3 specicies that come nearest the mark.

For now, I'm stopping short of extrapolating companion plants that would natural occur in the locales Tolkien describes...that seems rather open ended and I don't have much enthusiasm for the prospect of doing it justice.

At this point I've got a complete list of the references made by Tolkien in his books, and I've already assigned 'real world' plants w/ botanical names to about 30% of his entries. I'm already resigned to the fact that every Tolkien fan I share the list with will immediately notice glaring omissions . I'm pleasantly surprised that none of the helpful posts above have mentioned any Tolkien references that were not already in my database. Maybe I missed fewer than I thought

Using this list I could then just include a random sampling of these plants...or tray to create a garden, or bed, (or even large) pot meant to evoke a particular place or moment of the story. i.e. The Garden at Bag End, Beorns Lodge, The Greensward of the Houses of Healing, etc.

One ambitious idea that comes to mind is to take a moment when the Fellowship is scattered between Rohan, Gondor and Ithilien...and create a foreground, middleground, background garden view that presented elements from each of those region of middle earth.

If you've seen the last movie, Return of the King, one of the last scenes in the book is very informative. Sam returns to his house and you can see many familiar flowers there. Yes, I know that, as good as Peter Jackson is, he couldn't find "real" Tolkien flowers!
But hey...it was in the movie and we can find those!

Someone did some amazing work there, especially the shire stuff. I'd love to see THEIR plant list I think at least they gave us some of Bilbo's "nasturtians"

In the course of this little project, I've realized those movies really failed to present any of Tolkien's amazing Ithilien desciptions. But I loved the films nonetheless

It's amazing to see that there are people as nutty as I am about Tolkien....what I would love to find is the Elven bread.

When I was a kid we used to use graham crackers as lembas...LOL Saltines were Cram. And the forsythia patch under the pines across the alley was Lorien.

A Tolkien themed garden- what an amazing, wonderful idea. A person could do a bed to represent the shire, one to represent Lorien and so on. They could be layed out in a pattern similar to the way they are on the map.

Hey, brennewoman! Did you get your seeds yet? Now you'll have mignotte for your LotR garden!

I can't wait to get mine!

Here is an (incomplete) list of the 'invented' plants of Tolkien. ATHELAS, ELANOR, LAURELIN, MALLORN, NIMLOTH, NIPHREDIL, SIMBELMYNE, TELPERION, ASPHODEL, ALFIRIN, MALLOS.

If anyone wants to take a crack at assigning 'availables' for these 'fantasticals'(or point out omissions, please do.