Free Seeds from Children's Society - V. important info

maytaurus

[FONT=&quot]Chinese Foxglove[/FONT]
http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/1455/

Danger:
Seed is poisonous if ingested
Parts of plant are poisonous if ingested
All parts of plant are poisonous if ingested

mary43

Oh..........thanks for letting me know. When I ;googled' it I couldn't see anything about it being poisonous but I hadn't read davesgarden.com
We don;t have any small children, just teenagers that we foster and we've a wild life area at the bottom of the garden. I wonder if they'd be ok planted somewhere down there. I don;t like wasting seeds and it is a really pretty flower.
I'm surprised these weren't checked more thoroughly before being sent out, particularly with it being the Childrens Society,

tbs624

mary43 wrote: »

Oh..........thanks for letting me know. When I ;googled' it I couldn't see anything about it being poisonous but I hadn't read davesgarden.com
We don;t have any small children, just teenagers that we foster and we've a wild life area at the bottom of the garden. I wonder if they'd be ok planted somewhere down there. I don;t like wasting seeds and it is a really pretty flower.
I'm surprised these weren't checked more thoroughly before being sent out, particularly with it being the Childrens Society,

At the bottom of the page for the RHS link that I gave above is

"[FONT=Trebuchet MS, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Do not let this list put you off buying these plants. They are safe to grow and can be enjoyed, just be careful and remember to treat them with respect."

If you go through the list you'll see the names of many plants that most of us will have in our gardens - we have had gardens with foxgloves,lily of the valley,laburnum, monkshood,lupins, tobacco plants et al and managed not to poison any of our family or any pets Most kids don't generally graze on the garden and learning about what is safe and what's not is surely part of life. Do people also avoid all plants with thorns and spines, or berries, or stop their kids playing with conkers etc....................?

I think it's just a matter of checking the plants out and then using common sense when you are in the garden. Kids need to learn when to wear gardening gloves, never to put unknown stuff into their mouths, and to wash their hands.
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spendingspree

Heya peeps!

I know what you're saying, tbs624, of course people need to be aware of and have respect for the world around them.

The main point is that the seed giveaway came with a letter encouraging parents to plant them with their children, and although it gave basic planting instructions, I feel it should have had some sort of warning saying that some plants can be poisonus if eaten, so if there are young children about, it may be best to plant them in a pot and put out of reach or something. Or even better - just giving out totally *safe* plants full stop!

Maybe I'm being a bit paranoid and over-cautious with my kids, but when we've done re-doing our garden, the only "plants" we'll have are vegetables (yay for me - cheaper than Tesco lol! ) with any flowers being checked to make sure they're not poisonous.

Tatty bye!

nanokitten

tbs624 has a point. I think its really importat for kids to be taught to identify poisenous plants and the be cautious of new ones. Having a totally sterile garden provides no opportunity to learn such things.

We certainly learnt at an early age to identify nettles and brambles (not poisenous but unpleasant) foxgolves, laburnan, the difference between bilberries and crowberries, not to eat ornamental cherries and be suspicipus of all fungi etc. Most parents teach their kids to swim and the green cross code.
Surely its better to arm you kids with as much botanical knowledge as possible (dogs are another matter as some are just too greedy/stupid to educate).

Bit of a disaster sending poisenous plants out to ususpecting paents though!

Ellie

To be quite honest here - I personally think someone who has received a packet if the monkshood should email whoever is sending them out, after all not everyone reads this site or would google their seeds.

I know we teach our children about nettles etc but it says (from a google page)
Monk's-hood will grow in sun or partial shade in any fertile soil. Care is needed, however, as all parts of the plant are very poisonous and contact with the foliage may cause skin irritation in some people. It is also called wolf-bane, perhaps because medieval hunters used it as a poison.
As the flower looks so pretty it would only take one child to try and smell the pretty plant and they could get some kind of reaction. We all react differently to these kind of things, and symptoms could potentially be alot worse for some.

*Jelly_Tots*

wasting_noalibi wrote: »

WARNING, WARNING - Please plant only the seeds and NOT your children!!!!
:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

the serius point is that things 'ave got so PC its only a matter of time afore people REALLY woul want that wanring!



u're not alone tho' - u, half the people on this thread and the rest of the UK - 1 reason why we're breedin' a nation of obese couch potatoes sadly.

"Most kids don't generally graze on the garden" : you've never met mine then ! Toddlers put stuff in their mouths - full stop. Pebbles, dog poo, old sweets, anything they can get their hands on. No matter how much you explain to them. These seeds were aimed at kids - and when these seeds grew, the kids would be taking an interest in them. Watering them, touching them etc.
It's nothing to do with 'PC' :rolleyes: or obesity, we just don't want our kids to get ill when they don't have to. What has this got to do with PC ? Are safety gates (to stop kids falling downstairs) PC ? Are swimming armbands PC ? Are fireguards PC ? Can't understand this reasoning.
Nice one OP, btw !!

FROM WIKEPEDIA:
From practical experience, the sap oozing from eleven picked leaves will cause cardiac symptoms for a couple of hours. In this event, there will be no gastrointestinal effects. Tingling will start at the point of absorption and extend up the arm to the shoulder, after which the heart will start to be affected. The tingling will be followed by numbness — it is fairly unpleasant. As remarked above, atropine is an antidote.

tbs624

Jelly Tots - it's everyone's responsibility as a parent to look out for their own children's safety, not simply to rely on someone else doing it on their behalf or to blame someone else's lack of forethought. Why not just assume that all plants, seeds, bulbs are poisonous & act with due caution, teaching your kids to do likewise?

There's are a couple of useful words that most parents are able to use to great effect now and again : "No" and " don't" ........really helpful if your toddler likes chomping on dog excrement, or the odd slug,or anything else that's non-too healthy for them.. If you can't get them to not touch certain plants( or take special care around them) , how will you ever teach them not to touch anything else that may harm them? Seized the cat's tail and she bit you/scratched you - "damn that cat , it had no warning on its collar about that sort of behaviour or the possibility of getting cat scratch fever........"

I'd agree that there probably should have been a warning note attached if the seeds were sent specifically for family gardening but it really is about people taking a measure of responsibility for themselves & their own kids. Nothing is 100% safe, and some people are more likely to have reactions to some things than others.

Hyacinth and daffodil bulbs are poisonous and yet how many kids have their first experience of the plant world with either of these? The good old hyacinth bulb in its glass jar seemed to form part of many a nursery school’s “nature table” - I don’t recall seeing a warning.Oak leaves with their acorns were there too....

Rhubarb leaves are poisonous; apricots, cherries, peaches & apples all have seeds containing cyanide; green/sprouting potatoes contain the poison solanine. Buttercups, holly, sweet peas, tomato leaves ….the list can go on an on.

Ellie wrote: »

..... after all not everyone reads this site or would google their seeds.

so they want to abdicate their responsibilities for what they do, along with the safety of their children, in their own home/garden to someone else?

.

Ellie wrote: »

...We all react differently to these kind of things, and symptoms could potentially be a lot worse for some.

I'd agree with you, as I mentioned above, but that applies right across the board, so let's label every plant/seed with "could cause a reaction if eaten, touched, smelt etc.", in fact let's apply it to *everything, everywhere* ?? I'm pretty sure that eventually anything we use will be so covered with cautionary labelling that most people will actually cease to read any of the labels. Some people even have allergic reactions to their own garden gloves....seriously, it's the dyes/treatments etc used with some leather ones....it's a dangerous thing altogether, this gardening lark, and that's before you get the chainsaw out..................

Look around your home - pretty certain that you'll find much there that could cause serious harm if touched swallowed etc, including many common houseplants. (Ever wondered about that absorbent gel inside those marvellous environmentally unfriendly disposable nappies, or the effect on your baby's lungs of the talc that you maybe smother over your kids ....?)

If you're ever in the North East go to Alnwick Castle and check out their magnificent Poison Garden (most definitely labelled) but if you can't use common sense & properly supervise your kids in a garden maybe you better leave them with granny who probably can

littlelu2008

Thanks very much for posting OP, I've got two cats and really wouldn't want them chewing anything poisionous

JustaNewbie_2

Thanks for the info OP. Since this project is all about children doing the planting, some indication on the pack would have been nice. I don't think it's anything to do with the blame culture - why have warnings on anything at all then?