Pony spit helps your rose bushes ‘go crazy’

And other stories from the stranger side of life

A rose
(Image credit: Getty Images)

Pony spit is the key to “sprucing up your garden”, an expert has told The Times. Isabella Tree, who runs the Knepp estate in West Sussex, said that animal saliva was the secret to growing fuller rose bushes. “If you collect some animal saliva, even if it’s pony spit or something, and anoint that little bit that you cut with your secateurs, the enzyme in the spit, the plant can read it and it goes even crazier,” she said. Tree added that “it gets bushier and throws out even more flowers”.

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  Chas Newkey-Burden has been part of The Week Digital team for more than a decade and a journalist for 25 years, starting out on the irreverent football weekly 90 Minutes, before moving to lifestyle magazines Loaded and Attitude. He was a columnist for The Big Issue and landed a world exclusive with David Beckham that became the weekly magazine’s bestselling issue. He now writes regularly for The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Independent, Metro, FourFourTwo and the i new site. He is also the author of a number of non-fiction books.