Vintage poplin postcard of Belgraves Court, the stomping grounds of Simon Kurt Wortland, better known as the Mad Gardener of Bromley Gardens, because of his startling mental defects and his mad gardening skillz.
A typical day for Wortland was anything but typical, and might have included weeding the ornamental red lettuce beds, pleaching the lime trees, and surgically replacing his thumb with his big toe. Or any other toe. Or several toes.
Baby Gruenwald was one of the few to show up at Wortland’s parole hearing in 1952, heartily recommending he be released, as Halloween was coming and the baby needed somebody to scissorhand his hedges (though nobody called it scissorhanding back then, they called it cruickshanking, as there was this guy named Cruickshank who was awesome at it).
