I’m a bit of a garden nerd and was thinking about this last summer whilst planting. It was a lovely pair of foxgloves, a beautiful, unique looking flower. It’s also quite toxic.
What if I decide to grow a garden full of foxglove, belladonna, hemlock, lily of the valley and angel’s trumpet? Can I plant stinging nettles along my fenceline? Would they make me pound a sign into the dirt with one of those skull and crossbones on it? Is it illegal to have a poison garden if it’s only for aesthetics?
Now, obviously “booby traps” are illegal on one’s property. Are poisonous plants booby traps?
What if I only have ONE toxic plant? What if some kid wanders into my backyard and munches on my two foxgloves?
I’m not sure this would constitute an attractive nuisance. Honestly, any kid who goes around eating random plants probably deserves what’s coming to him.
Many states have noxious weed weed programs, here’s one for Nebraska. Some of those programs entail county weed boards or the equivalent, who may have the legal power to tell you to cut down your damnable stinging nettles.
That said, I’ve been growing castor beans, a favored terrorist source of ricin, for many years, without problems. Atropa belladonna, deadly nightshade, is a frequent volunteer in the neighborhood garden spots, but no one gets bent out of shape about it. Pokeberry, with it’s child toxic fruits, has also become increasingly common locally in the last decade or so. Again, no one seems to even notice the plant, much less worry about it.
Yes you can grow poisonous plants. There would be a lot less plants around if not. Now poisoning something that is normally edible to get a person stealing food will have you charged for attempted murder, just like any booby trap.
Pie; I love my rhubarb pie. Parts of this plant are edible and other parts are poisonous. I think as long as you aren’t baking your little nasties into treats for the neighborhood kids, it’s all legal.
Tons of plants have toxic properties to one degree or another. Bearing in mind that people will file lawsuits over damn near anything, it’s hard to conceive of being liable for growing foxgloves, Aconitum etc. on the basis of some child wandering onto the property and eating plants.
Deliberately setting out to grow a garden filled with poisonous plants might be another story, especially if you didn’t fence it off and placed it in a conspicuous spot by the street so that it was easily accessible.
If you live in an area frequented by children, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to sequester such a garden in a secured enclosure.
I’ve thought about designing an herb/medicinal garden, especially a walled garden. This is a medicinal garden I’d like to visit.
I think if you grew a section of your garden just for poisonous plants and some kid got a hold of some of the flowers you’d have to wait for a jury to hold you not civilly liable under the attractive nuisance doctrine. There would be much less of a chance of getting all the way to a jury if you only had one poisonous plant. A collection of them is just kind of begging for a bunch of lawyers to fight over the consequences. In fact, I think that a variation of this might be perfect for some first year law students I know for a practice exam.
Right - this is sort of my question. Obviously nobody’s going to sue me over my two foxgloves. However, what if I have a garden chalk-full of nightshades and hemlock? What if it’s honestly for aesthetics (sez I)? I think deadly nightshade is a lovely plant of its own accord.
Now, obviously I’m not ACTUALLY setting out to grow the most poisonous garden I legally can. I’m simply wondering whether there’s a line somewhere between attractive nuisance and horrific land of deadly flora. It’ll probably boil down to “what the jury decides in your particular case,” but I was wondering whether there were any specifics.
Suppose my neighbor’s cat eats my tulips every year. This year I decide to plant hemlock in the flower bed instead. Am I required to warn my neighbor that his cat better not come snacking, even if its my property?
Why would you plant hemlock? It’s a rather unattractive weedy looking thing related to carrots. It tastes and smells horrible. Poison hemlock, and the evergreen tree hemlock are totally different things.
There are so many garden plants that are at least toxic, if not flat out poison that suing anyone about it is just silly.
In general I agree but I could see ways it would be reasonable.
Say if someone planted blackberry, blueberry and nightshade plants all together in a place kids would be likely to see. Certainly the scrumptious fruits might attract a child who starts chowing down. Unfortunately the nightshade’s fruit is sweet as well and so a child could easily decide to have a go…which has a good chance at killing them. In such a case I would hold the person who put it there liable.
You do raise interesting points. I’m of the idea that if you don’t want to get poisoned from my yard, keep your cotton-picking hands off my plants, but I understand the legal world doesn’t see things as black and white as I do. I read just recently that the castor bean seeds are amongst the most toxic in the world (four to eight seeds can kill an adult human), yet our local zoo grows a number of these plants every year and they’re often used as specimen plants since they’re very striking.
As others have said, there are so many common plants that have so many types and degrees of toxicity that you’d be left with almost nothing if you took them all off the planting lists, but I suppose going out of your way to poison people (or lure them to poison themselves) would be outside the pale.
