I was just watching the news and there was segment talkng about and showing the Poison Garden as it is named in England which grows only very poisonous plants. Visitors are told not to touch or inhale anything. What really surprised me was that they had a castor bean plant in a cage. They said it is the most poisonous of all plants. I knew they were poison but "the most poisonous of all" 🤯. I have two packets of seeds (castor beans) which I have not planted yet. When /if I do plant does that mean I must build cages for them? If they are so poisonous why are companies allowed to sell them.

https://emergency.cdc.gov/agen....

Seems like giant hogweed, or some euphorbia etc with contact irritant would be way more dangerous. I guess technically they could be correct but it seems like hype to me.

Where lawyers rule, foolishness results. Castor bean plants were and are common garden plants, and poisonings are extremely rare.

The whole subject of toxins in plants makes me a little crazy. Plant ' toxins' are poorly understood by many people. I'm no expert either, but I know it doesn't matter what a plant has in its leaves if I'm not eating them or smoking them. And animals seem to be pretty smart that way too.
People keep lots of toxic things in bottles in their homes, shed, or garages.

I agree with Sally. People give plants bad names because they can be poisonous if you do something with it that wasn't intended. Ingest just about anything that wasn't made to be ingested and you'll find it's a poison. Your house is already filled with such toxins as Sally said.

Agree, castor bean is grown by the millions as ornamental every summer. Just like opium poppies, foxglove, monkshood, oleander, and so many more.

The power of some of these plants has been harnessed as medication. Foxglove (Digitalis) is used to make heart medication.

Every gardener has that moment when they realize some of their plants are "poisonous." Most of them go on to learn that unless they eat those plants, they are harmless. Toxicity can take various forms, such as from mere contact, contact with the sap, and ingestion. More rarely, from inhaling the smoke from burning.

An extremely small number of plants cause a significant adverse effects from just touching them, like poison ivy, hogweed, machineel tree, various nettles.

The most likely adverse effect experience from plants is from coming in contact with the sap - for those with skin that is sensitive to the particular sap. More than half of my houseplants will cause a rash to my ridiculously sap-sensitive skin if I get the sap on me and don't wash it off right away.

A discussion about that:
The thread "Mystery poison ivy, contact dermatitis rash" in Houseplants forum

thanks, Murky,
Good comments, Tiffany, and yes oleander I was trying to remember- so widely used.

And people so often question plants they see with certain characteristics they think indicate a dangerous plant, but how many question beautiful foxgloves? I read a very scary account of foxglove poisoning, I think the little girl was ok in the end. I don't have the website handy.

I liked Geoff Stein's articles on this topic at DG.

Just waving my hand to say I totally agree with Sally, Nancy and Tiffany.

That Poison Garden in England is a gimmick, but if it educates people, that's great.

Yeah... Build a cage for the caster plant...
I saw that segment on the news, too.

I've read that chewing up a single bean might be a successful exit strategy.

Most of us have read or heard about Ricin... And... the taste of castor oil should be reason enough to avoid tasting them!

I've also read that aconitum shouldn't be handled without gloves... That poisonings had resulted when the cook dug carrots in the winter... and got the two mixed up...

As beautiful plants for a garden otherwise devoured by deer and rabbits, the poison garden is a good place to start... and... as most people get their food from the store... accidental poisonings seem unlikely.

But as far as jailing the plants?
At the poison garden, they have a sense of humour...

I think that most of us remember Amy Stewart's book from 2010: "Wicked Plants: The A-Z of Plants that Kill, Maim, Intoxicate and Otherwise Offend"

If you google "poison plant book"... you could find enough books to fill a shelf.

and you have to know what you are picking for a salad!

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...

crawgarden said: and you have to know what you are picking for a salad!
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...

Ha, I was once accused of being a Bad Mommy because of that! When my daughter was about 4, we moved to some acreage and I started taking her out with me each evening to forage greens for our salad. Some plants were in my garden, some grew wild. She learned the names and tastes of all of them.

I got a call one day from a schoolmate's furious mother — she'd conscientiously taught her little girl NEVER to eat plants outdoors. Apparently, when the girl was visiting, my daughter had shown her all the outdoor plants that were good to eat.

crawgarden said:
and you have to know what you are picking for a salad!

Her husband had picked the [foxglove] leaves from their vegetable garden, believing them to be kale.

?
I don't think that the two look anything alike.

That was his story and he was sticking to it!

so, he was trying to 'off' her, but then had a memory lapse and ate some himself. I can see this in a Murder She Wrote.

agreed, they don't look alike. And with someone that clueless, it's probably not a great idea to have toxic plants in the vegetable garden.

All due respect to li'l Oasis, but I wouldn't want my kid taking wild plant advice from another kid without a 'background check." ( But I wouldn't be furious. )

I assume you mean the poison garden at The Alnwick Garden in Northumberland. Yes it is a bit of a gimmick but I don't know of many other gardens which feature these types of plants.
As an admin of a plant group on Facebook I'm well aware of the many hysterical over-reactions to a lot of toxic plants. I wonder where people imagine natural toxins come from?
Ricin is a very dangerous poison, but not any reason not to grow Ricinus plants IMO.

As Sally says, the contents of most kitchen cupboards or bathroom cabinets are much more dangerous than your garden.

Lol, she was ballistic and told me we were being reckless and were going to poison ourselves... surprised she didn't report me to Child Protective Services. They lived in a condo in town and she was a helicopter mom anyway. Her kids were terrified of the outdoors. She thought my daughter was borderline feral, so hey, different strokes.

I wouldn't take foraging advice from child either, but I don't think she was forcing the other kid to eat, just sharing her knowledge. She especially liked the little blue borage flowers

This just made me think of all the 'toxic' plants in all the other public gardens without warnings- don't let the insurance companies find out
Then again, the insurance companies probably know the real risk of injury from plants in a public garden is almost nonexistent. that's what ins. companies are pretty good at figuring out.

I have a picture of my kids well covered in pokeweed berry juice. I guess that's why they didn't make it to ivy league college.

IF, if some one has an serious allergy to plant a , w, or h one time ingestion may mean a trip to the glory land, or one wishing they had, and fear of such is the paranoia that lawyers get rich off of.

As the saying goes, you pays your money and takes your chances.

RpR said: IF, if some one has an serious allergy to plant a , w, or h one time ingestion may mean a trip to the glory land, or one wishing they had, and fear of such is the paranoia that lawyers get rich off of.

As the saying goes, you pays your money and takes your chances.

What does a, w, or h mean? If you have a serious unknown allergy to anything, you can get seriously ill. It doesn't have to be classified as a poisonous plant. It's only poison to you.

I also don't understand "you pays your money and takes your chances." Buying seeds for new garden crops? Yeah, okay, we all do that all the time. Randomly eating an unknown plant? No, that's just stupid.