It will soon be 9 years since we moved into our home, and I won’t lie I think we both still find the garden space a little intimidating. Creating a diverse garden can be rewarding but you do need a certain amount of knowledge. There are so many plants to choose from and often we choose the ones that will look beautiful in addition to what we already grow in our gardens. However, just as with animals in nature, the prettiest colours can sometimes come with pitfalls.
Before we choose plants that please our eyes, we need to consider a few things. While choosing attractive plants is important in this creative process, there are a few plants to avoid. Poisonous plants are dangerous if you have children or animals around and they are not always obvious. Some are just greens and look like weeds, while others grow flowers that are quite beautiful. If you would like to go shopping for new plants to add to your back garden or have identified those dangerous plants that are already in your garden, we can help you out – sometimes it is easier to avoid those dangers but often it is quite simple to have these plants around while making your backyard a safe environment for everyone. Our pets pay zero attention to any plants in the garden, but there are some ways to make the garden a safer space.
Lawn Edge
If you already have poisonous plants in your back garden and for whatever reason you would like to keep them right where they are, that is possible. There are easy ways to protect others from harmful plants, whether that’s a child, animal or yourself. Lawn Edging is one thing to look at, that can be easily implemented and will keep anyone potentially harmed otherwise away from anything dangerous.
There are many ways to build an edge and which one you choose will depend on your budget, as well as the look you would like to create in your garden. It is important to settle the edge lower into the ground to avoid harmful plants from sprouting outside of the garden edge. While bricks are a common material to use, aluminium is another option – You can see examples here. Bricks allow plenty of room for creativity as you can design their layout. You can choose to lay them out in patterns or keep it simple with straight lines. If you like a more rustic look, you could also go for a garden edge that is made from wood which will create a more natural look.
There is no limit to the height of your garden bed wall, just make sure it is high enough to keep anyone out of the bed and to stop plants you want to keep in the garden bed from growing over and out of the designated safe area.
Bed Borders
While all materials that we mentioned above are a great way to keep dangerous plants away and safe from others, you can also use other plants for your bed borders.
Surrounding your dangerous plants with safe plants will keep it colorful and anyone who would otherwise go for the harmful plants might look at the safe plants instead – this is a careful consideration when there are children around.
Choosing the right combination of dangerous and harmless plants is important – below are some plants that can potentially be harmful and that you need to be aware of. Please note that if you have children, these plants should be avoided completely. If you already have these in your garden, all things mentioned about lawn edging should be taken into consideration.
Horse Chestnuts – They grow white flowers and seeds that look like edible chestnuts. They are attractive to children because of their seeds and beautiful flowers, so should be kept out of reach and in a safe area.
Lily of the Valley – These flowers are poisonous only when digested – there are orange-like fruits that grow with them so should be kept out of reach of any pets or children.
Oleander – This plant is mostly grown on the southern continent and has a toxin in their nectar and its colourful flowers.
There are many other poisonous plants to be aware of, these are only a few examples of common flowers and plants that can be found in gardens. At the end of the day, just about anything when ingested or touched in great quantities is likely to cause an unpleasant reaction, so to it’s just about being sensible.
You now know that there are many ways to still keep these beautiful flowers in your garden while keeping everyone safe. There are many other flowers that grow vines and can be kept out of reach of people and animals, too. Be sure to take care when gardening and taking care of these plants – now let’s get creative with your new garden edge and use your new knowledge to keep these plants in sight but out of reach.
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