If you’ve eliminated chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and weed killers from your gardening supplies, you’ve taken a giant step toward creating a safe and healthy garden for your baby, your family, and the earth itself. That’s wonderful!
Now it’s time to survey other potential hazards for babies and children in the garden. These include poisonous plants, bodies of water, play structures, and even the ordinary garden hose.
Poisonous Plants
Indoor and outdoor plants are responsible for a rising number of accidental poisonings, according to the Poison Control Center. Plant ingestion is among the top five causes of accidental poisonings in children younger than five years.
Many common outdoor and houseplants are toxic, and some are deadly. To be safe, you need to identify all the plants in your garden landscape and check them against a poisonous plant reference. If poisonous plants are already in your garden or on your property, consider removing them or fencing them. Make a sketch of the garden, pinpoint the spots of any toxic plants, and write down the correct botanical names. Put the sketch in a safe place where you can easily find it again in case you ever need to quickly identify the name of an ingested leaf or other plant part.
Supervise your baby at all times. When he starts touching and tasting, you need to be sure there is no access to any hazardous plant material. Because babies and small children can’t distinguish between safe and toxic plants, you must teach them never to taste any part of a plant without first showing it to you—including the leaves, berries, stems, bark, seeds, flowers, nuts, pods, and bulbs. This is essential if you plan to grow edible plants, simply to avoid confusion over what is OK to eat and what isn’t. So the absolute rule should be “Never taste anything in the garden before showing Mommy or Daddy.”
Here is a partial list of poisonous outdoor plants:
Mushrooms. Ingesting any part of any mushroom can be dangerous.
Bulbs. The bulbs and leaves of most ornamental bulbs are poisonous, including daffodil (Narcissus), lily (Lilium), and tulip (Tulipa).
Shrubs
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Daphne (Daphne). The bright red or orange berries are deadly, and the bark and leaves are also toxic.
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Angel’s trumpet (Datura). The flowers, leaves, and seeds are deadly. This plant sheds its large, fragrant flowers continually over a long season, requiring daily removal.
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Holly (Ilex). The tempting berries are toxic.
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Oleander. All parts are deadly; even the smoke of a burning oleander plant is highly toxic. is highly toxic.
Flowers
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