Topic: Foxgloves and children.

[cacran]

I have a few Foxglove in the garden and love seeing the bees enter the flowers, My neighbour, warned me that it is Digitalis which is a drug used to speed up the heart after heart attack. I knew this but my children never touched my plants and my granddaughter who comes regularly is tought to follow suit. Am I being careless?

[Digeroo]

I think it also depends on the children, my son could never be relied on not to touch things.
I thought that eating even a small amount can cause problems.

[goodlife]

No I don't think you are. If you look for list of poisonous garden plants on net...most of our common garden plants will appear on it.. ::)
As long as children are tought from early on that nothing goes into mouth without first checking from adults if it is safe to do so, that is what parents..and grandparents succesfully have practiced as long as humans have existed.
Bit of washing hands now and then is not bad idea neither.. ;D
Yes..you neighbours is right about foxcloves and digitalis..but I think she/he is bit alarmist. They can be handled and even picked into vase and it won't do them any harm. There is some plants with very skin irritating sap, but unless they go and pull plants apart, even those are not life threatning..again..children can be tought to respect of plants and what they are able to do.

[RenishawPhil]

We removed all of ours when we got our chickens

[goodlife]

I've always had some in my garden and chickens don't touch them..funny how they know what is safe to eat and what is not.

[Digeroo]

Chickens might be sensible not sure you can rely on human chicks to the same extent.

[saddad]

Are we taking out all the privet hedges as well? Far more children are poisoned by them than foxgloves.  :-X

[Nora42]

It's a question of common sense yes foxgloves are poisonous but I grow them in abundance - my kids know not to touch them and certainly not to eat them or anything else for that matter form the garden without asking first - this plan fails miserably when the raspberry canes are heavy with fruit.A human being is far more likely to touch something it is not familair with, removing danger is not the answer. education is.
but digeroo is correct too - if you know the kids will put everything in theirs mouths then foxgloves where small children can get to them are not advisable.

Nora

[pumkinlover]

I have a few Foxglove in the garden and love seeing the bees enter the flowers, My neighbour, warned me that it is Digitalis which is a drug used to speed up the heart after heart attack. I knew this but my children never touched my plants and my granddaughter who comes regularly is tought to follow suit. Am I being careless?

Digitalis slows down the heart rate. (Yeah I know - not really important in this case ::) )
The important thing is that you teach children to cope with and avoid  the effects of risk which is inherant in life. This (IMHO -as a non parent ) is much better than removing all risks (within reason) So I think that you are not being careless. Much better to teach them how to safely cross a road and to walk on the pavement than to drive them everywhere!

[ACE]

Yes be careful, otherwise they will never get old enough to go out on their bikes and skateboards. Why would children eat flowers and plants when they usually revolt at eating their vegetables. I cannot find any instances of children dying because they ate digitalis, plenty of adults have overdosed, but that is natural selection.

If you are that concerned don't let them out in the garden alone, if you go out with them and teach them gardening they will soon wise up. Be careful if a bird flys over, they can carry disease you know, get them back indoors quick.

[cacran]

I got it wrong then, it slows down the heart rate, not quickens it up. Good thing I'm not a doctor, eh?

Well I am going to leave it where it is and teach my Graddaughter the same way I did with my own children, not to touch and just to look.

My neighbour is a bit smug, she told me the same thing when my children were little as I had Foxgloves back then too. We don't even speak to her at all, normally as she is a bit on the nasty side. I think she was just being a bit of a know all, she is an ex nurse. I wanted to ask her how many children she'd seen admitted to hospital with digitalis poisoning. The laughable thing is that until the past couple of years she has been such a heavy smoker that the smell came into our house through the windows and she has brought up three girls there, all of them smoke, now, and in the company of their children. I think passive smoking is poisonous. I'd rather a child sit near a Foxglove than a lit cigarette.

I appreciate your views.

[Robert_Brenchley]

Passive smoking killed a friend of my wife's, who developed lung cancer despite never having smoked in her life. She just spent many years working in care homes where the residents all smoked. I've never known anyone who suffered from digitalis poisoning. I'd like to know how many cases there are per year.

[Jeannine]

I too have never heard of a case either, we have them on our community garden.

 Vancouver did, some years ago remove all the ..oh eck my mind had gone a blank..LOL The tree with the lovely yellow droopy flowers.  Anyway it was removed from public streets and parks  due to a problem with poisoning.

 They also own our gardens and haven't banned foxgloves.

XX Jeannine

[Robert_Brenchley]

Laburnum. I've heard it's poisonous, but I've never heard of a case.

[Jeannine]

Thats the one. There were a few cases of kids eating the pods many years ago, I don`t know what the outcome was but they shifted them.

XX Jeannine

[Gordonmull]

lol I grew up on Mull and was always out wandering over the hills and through the bogs. I'm not sure if everbody in my generation was flung out the door after meals and called back in for the next one, but we all were on the island. We had to say where we were going and off we went. My wife's experiences are totally different, though, growing up in the city, as she did .

We were all taught from a very early age what was poisonous. Foxgloves grow in abundance back home. As do all sorts of toadstool and many other nasties. I always remember that the doctor's waiting room had a poster on the wall that pictured the poisonous wildflowers.

I think my mother was more worried about our wild swimming, cliff diving, ropeless rock-climbing, riding bikes down mountainsides, stone-fights, winter hill climbing, etc. than she ever was about us consuming poisonous plants.

[Jeannine]

What a wonderful childhood :)

XX Jeannine

[Borlotti]

My Dad told me to cut down the laburnum when I had small children, but he had foxgloves in his garden.  I do think people should be educated as I didn't know what plants were poisoness and which weren't but then I think we are talking about very small children, that do tend to put everything in their mouths, and I know you should watch them, but sometimes they do taste things that they shouldn't.  I used to eat sand, and lots of young children put worms in their mouths, but don't suppose that would harm them. 

[Gordonmull]

It was, Jeannine, I was so lucky. If I have some of my own I want to move back. Less stress for me and more fun for them  :D

[Hazelb]

I was always told not to eat seed and fruit of plants unless I knew what they were and that they were safe to eat.

That is good advice, served me well into adult life and meant I grew up in a garden full of foxgloves, laburnum even the occasional deadly nightshade climber...loaded with berries.


horror of horror what if the little darlings grow up with every possible poisonous plant removed from their garden...but then walk down a foot path and come face to face with a foxglove....how could they be expected to cope!  ::)

Lets be realistic....

an awful lot of garden plants are poisonous if eaten...even rhubarb leaves, green fruits on potato plants etc.

Digitalis are not poisonous to touch or handle..only to eat.

isn't it part of out job as a parent to teach our children well and equip them to become responsible adults?