Don't come into the garden
Sir: Ursula Buchan is quite right to remark how many garden plants are poisonous, though they have, hitherto, done little harm (Gardens, 15 September). Nonethe- less cyanides, alkaloids and deadly pep- tides and terpenoids are all produced in the English town or country garden.
Now our legislators, may their folly never grow more, have lately enacted draconian and all-embracing legislation on the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health. A principle of CoSHH is that the accused employer is presumed guilty unless he can prove himself innocent (which he is unlikely to do). Employers of jobbing gardeners, or those who beautify approaches to factory or office with gar- dens, seem to me to be left in an invidious position.
About half the plants in my own em- ployer's gardens are poisonous, others are allergens to the susceptible; the only solu- tion to his responsibilities under CoSHH appears to be (chromate free) concrete.
P. G. Urben
2 Upper Rosemary Hill, Kenilworth, Warwickshire
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