Gardens
The honey of poison-flowers
Ursula Buchan
raining an exuberant spaniel puppy is not quite the same thing as training a clematis or rose. Clumbers are not clim- bers. Slapping the inside of one's thigh and calling his name in a manner at once enthusiastic, masterful and encouraging, with eyes half-closed (well, that is what the book recommends) works at first but then, at the last moment, he swerves dramatical- ly from the beeline to his trainer to investigate the gastronomic potential of leaves and flowers in the borders. As a result, all the old anxieties (first experi- enced when the children were younger) about poisonous plants come flooding back.
Who ever thinks of the toxicity of plants when devising planting schemes? This is odd when one considers how many poten- tially harmful plants we grow as a matter of course. The list is extensive: laburnum, arum, rhus, hellebore, aconite, foxglove, rue, the castor-oil plant. (The last- mentioned, Ricinus communis, is one of the most sinister: it took only a small amount of the alkaloid derived from the seeds of this plant to kill Georgi Markov.) I blithely grow a number of harmful plants, including those mainstays of the herbaceous border, the euphorbias. When bruised or snapped, the stems of these exude a milky-white sap which can be a powerful skin irritant. Other plants likely severely to affect sensitive skins include the tender primula, Primula obconica, and Ruta graveolens, the common rue. Chrys- anthemums, daffodil bulbs and even the common ivy can also trigger adverse reac- tions.
With such a catalogue of toxic plants it would be unrealistic to do without them all. Many are only dangerous if eaten, so avoiding harm is simply a matter of exercis- ing a modicum of restraint. Philosophers would do as well to avoid Conium macula- turn as they would fatal controversy, unless they wish to follow the example of Soc- rates. It is true that monkshood (Aconi- turn) has roots similar to those of salsify but in what circumstances could you muddle the two up, except with malice afore- thought? And for most of those harmful to touch, mere discomfort is the only penalty for carelessness.
Young children plainly need to be pro- tected. I remember well the alarm we felt some years ago when we suspected that our daughter, aged about 18 months, had eaten foxglove seeds. We convinced ourselves that she had not, always a very tempting conclusion to come to in such circumst- ances. Fortunately, children are often simply not interested. As a child, I recall the autumn profusion of brightly coloured cuckoo-pint berries under some elm trees in the garden, but I was never the slightest bit tempted to eat them. Nevertheless, I have ordered my own children to leave alone the inviting rich red and translucent berries of honeysuckle. Dr John Henry, consultant physician at the National Poisons Unit in London, tells me that, in the last 30 years, cases of serious plant poisoning of children have been very rare. (Adult suicide attempts are another mat- ter: it is perfectly possible to kill yourself in the garden if you are really determined, although I shall not tell you how.) For grown-ups, the first step is to find out which plants in the garden are poiso- nous. A decision then has to be made in, relation to each: whether to treat it with caution (using gloves when weeding nearby or handling, not burning prunings on a bonfire, warning children) or to grub it up. The latter course can be an excellent excuse if your attitude towards it is already ambivalent. I dug up the only laburnum in my garden, despite the fact that genera- tions of children have played in laburnum- rich gardens with scarcely a mishap, be- cause I can happily enjoy the racemes of golden-yellow flowers in a million others.
Our children are mercifully old enough now to be sensible about plants but the spaniel will need to be protected from his own stupidity. That may mean removing the worst offenders to which he is 'We try to recreate their natural environment.' attracted. It is just as well that it is difficult to get hold of a rather pretty Mediterra- nean perennial called Apocynum venetum; I don't think he would thank me for introducing dogbane to the garden.
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