How Safe Is Your Garden?
For most people, the garden is one of the most important parts of the home, but it’s also one area that, often surprisingly, we need to look at closely when it comes to safety. Believe it or not, there are many potential dangers in gardens that are good to be aware of.
Poisonous & Toxic Plants
There are many plants in a garden that can be either poisonous or toxic when it comes to touching or ingesting - both of which are risky particularly for households with animals or children. Often, we can find yourself in a situation where the garden has a dangerous plant that we don’t even know about. Learning as much as we can about the plants in our area can help, along with researching any new plants that we might consider adding. A few plants to avoid, particularly when it comes to kids and animals are:
Monkshood (Aconitum spp.) ...
Horse Chestnut (Aesculus hippocastanum) ...
Morning Glory (Ipomoea spp.) ...
Angel's Trumpet (Brugmansia and Datura spp.) ...
Lily-of-the-valley (Convallaria majalis) ...
Foxgloves (Digitalis purpurea) ...
English Ivy (Hedera helix) ...
Lantana (Lantana camara)
Dangerous Pests
There are also a lot of pests that we could potentially find in the garden, and some of them can be dangerous too. Knowing about the dangerous ones and taking appropriate steps to keep them away from the garden is obviously an important move. There are quite a few to be aware of with which may require getting the appropriate help. For instance, mosquito pest control or snake catchers (we’ve needed both in different locations ourselves) can be incredibly helpful, depending on location.
Rotten & Diseased Trees
If there are any trees in your garden, they should be scrutinized as well. Trees are often susceptible to disease of many kinds, which can leave them rotting. When that happens, it is then only a matter of time until a branch could fall (if not the whole tree - also speaking from experience here), potentially hurting someone in the process. If there are signs of diseased trees, it’s crucial to deal with it quickly - and especially before it leads to the disease spreading to other nearby trees.
Pesticides
Finally, a word on pesticides. Depending on where one lives, use of pesticides can differ. However when it comes to personal use, it is clearly really important that we keep use of these to a minimum, because they can be very damaging to our health as well as the health of everyone in the vicinity - especially children. They can also harm the environment - even organic versions of these products.
Those are just some of the major things we can do to make our gardens a lot safer for everyone who comes into contact with it.
