Lucien Pellat-finet Pot Leaf Cashmere SweaterMarijuana may be illegal, but the weed is increasingly evident in American culture. Yes, Woodstock enjoyed its 40th anniversary this month, but there’s something else blowing in the wind.

Barneys New York in Beverly Hills is celebrating the Woodstock spirit by selling $78 “Hashish” candles in Jonathan Adler pots with bas-relief marijuana leaves; French designer Lucien Pellat-Finet dishes up a cashmere sweater at a pittance of a price, compared to white-gold and diamond custom pot-leaf-emblazoned wristwatches for $49,000 and belt buckles for $56,000.

In LA, the estimated 40,000 people attending the inaugural THC Expo hemp and art show in downtown Los Angeles will have another opportunity in 2010: April 23-25.

Leave it to the French to do everything more beautiful, more chic, more manicured. Do those gay Parisian wome let anything run wild, besides their libidos? Yes, but this Chef’s Kitchen garden at The Château de Villandry garden in the Loire Valley does not look like a wanton French woman.

The Château de Villandry garden in the Loire ValleyDesigner Karen Rogers explains to the Financial Times how kitchen gardening is really catching on.

“The interest in decorative vegetables is widespread. People now want to grow their own food on such a scale that their garden (if it is attached to a small townhouse, for instance) is often dominated by edibles. Why not? The allotment can look as pretty as the rose garden and attractive vegetables can be grown in borders amid the flowers. Once upon a time if vegetables were labelled “ornamental” it meant they were grown for looking at, not eating; nowadays people want them to be ornamental and edible.”

Kitchen Gardens were also big stars at this month’s Royal Horticultural Society’s Hampton Court Palace Flower Show in London. The Growing Tastes Allotment Garden won the prize for Best in Show. (See brief guided tour of allotment garden.)