Cottage Garden

We have a fairly regular route for a quick walk round the village, taking in pretty cottages, the church yard and some nice gardens to peek at. Dozens of times, we've done it. Today spotted a tree with lots of mistletoe low enough to touch, how on earth did we miss it before?? And how did these bunches survive Christmas without being nobbled.

Mistletoe is one of the most widely studied complementary therapies for cancer, according to the National Cancer Institute [USA], however there are as yet no conclusive trials although it has been shown to kill cancer cells in the laboratory. The Druids used it as a panacea, so it's been around a long time in folk medicine, and since the 1920's it has been investigated as a cancer remedy. I never tried it, probably because we didn't have time to think about it at the time. It's usually given by injection. So much is variable, the type of tree it grows on, the kind of mistletoe, time of year it's harvested, the way it's prepared. Not for the amateur.