I grew up in a farming community and have gardened for decades so find this fear of so called poisonous plants bewildering. Plants that have been in gardens for millennia have been labeled poisonous in the last few decades. I even found garlic on a poisonous list recently. But then it does give my husband indigestion
So maybe it is for some people
Having grown a lot of so called poisonous plants over the decades I keep seeing more and more plants on "beware poisonous" lists. I love foxgloves, columbine, delphiniums, poppies, calla lilies, tomatoes, potatoes (last two nightshade family so leaves are poisonous), philodendrons, ficus, dumb cane and I don't know how many dozens of others that are in my house and yard. Have always had pets and never had any problems. Our pets have never showed the least bit of interest in any poisonous plants, but I had to fence my veggie garden to keep our Doberman Pinchers from grazing the beans, peas, berries, and fruit trees. Three generations of dogs and not once did they bother the poisonous bird berry bushes/trees or any other plants that would make them ill. Wish I could say the same for the edibles. A Doberman on his hind legs can reach pretty high into a fruit tree.
As long as you don't eat poisonous plants, people shouldn't have a problem. When my son was young and I did daycare the children learned what was good to eat in the garden and what was only to look at. Infants are the only ones that put things in their mouths and no one would leave a child unsupervised.
People have been known to starve to death rather than break food taboos they learned from watching the adults when they were young. My daycare children knew to they could eat the blueberries, raspberries and strawberries or veggie garden crops. They learned some berry types were bird berries only, but were never interested. We had plenty of fruit bushes and trees to pick from.
Just because a plant is poisonous to eat doesn't mean you can't touch it. If that were true I'd have died or been sick with toxicity decades ago. The only exception to this statement is Monkshood also called
aconite and is classed as an alkaloid toxin. Weeding this plant should be done with gloves and washing your hands immediately afterwards. I have never seen it for sale and I got my plants in trade a year ago. Beautiful blue flowers in the fall. Don't think I'd grow it if we had small children around.
Zigs, I can't believe you ate foxglove! Didn't you know digitalis was used for some heart disease, or did you just want to speed/slow things up?
You must have been too young to know better. Never knew anyone to try foxglove before so pardon my fascination. Maybe some funny mushrooms would have been safer.
