Not since the launch of Garden & Gun magazine back in 2007 have we ever really thought about pairing the pastimes of planting flowers with that of firing off rounds of ammunition. And even then, we explored the concept with some major hesitation.
But the latest mash-up of the two gives us even more pause -- a new product by Scandinavian creative lab Studio Total (ST) called the Flower Shell, a 12-gauge shot gun shell that lets you plant flower seeds into the ground with... wait for it... a shotgun.
Violent? Yes. Ingenious? Pretty much.
According to the product site, flower seeds -- in one of 12 different species, such as poppy, sunflower, peony and an assortment of meadow flowers -- replace lead and traditional amounts of gun powder inside a standard 18.5mm shell. When fired into the ground, the ammunition gives life to barren plots, as designer Per Cromwell explains, and re-imagines the "overlooked creative potential of otherwise violent tools," as design site Gizmodo notes.
Coverage of Cromwell's project has been riddled with doubt, with Core 77 calling the product "100 percent questionable," but Cromwell confirmed in an email to the Huffington Post that his invention is 100 percent real, for sale and selling out fast. In fact, the Flower Shells are backordered until February, though Cromwell says you can still receive a gift certificate to share with any gun-and-flower loving recipient on your Christmas list.
To demonstrate the concept, ST, who's also credited with creating the iRock, a rocking chair that charges your iPod, released a series of informative test videos to aid curious gardeners in understanding how the Flower Shell works. Check out the poppy how-to above.
H/T Core 77
Editor's Note: As a HuffPost reader pointed out following the publication of this piece, Cromwell's Flower Shell is actually based on the “Shotshell with seed capsule" by Vernon Thomas Dwyer of Des Peres, Missouri. Dwyer's creation was granted US patent 3996865 on December 14, 1976.
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