Plantswoman FIONA EDMOND owns the award-winning Green Island Gardens in Essex.

Today the topic of her gardening column is the down-side that sometimes comes with gardening.

THIS week has been an unusual week for me in that I managed a rare escape from Green Island for three days to take my son up to Scotland to look around Edinburgh university.

On the way home we stopped at Alnwick Gardens, a place I have read a lot about and wanted to visit for many years.

Echo:

Sadly, I was disappointed by the gardens; not just because they were not my style of garden at all but mostly by the famous tree house.

Impressive it is in size and structure, however it is not a tree house as I understand the meaning of the term. For me a tree house is somewhere for children to play; this one is a huge structure built amongst the trees, not supported by them, and has been built as a restaurant. Anyway, the most interesting part of the garden for me was the guided tour of the poison garden, given by John who was not only extremely knowledgeable but also had a wicked sense of humour.

His talk opened our eyes to many common plants that we grow in our gardens either in the knowledge, or without that many parts of them are poisonous.

Echo:

Just how toxic many of them can be was quite alarming; for example, if a dog picks up a twig from a laburnum tree and chews it for 5 minutes that can be enough to kill the animal.

Thankfully I removed the only laburnum tree at Green Island when we moved in 23 years ago. Even the simple foxglove leaves if eaten can kill rapidly, John told us of several cases where women had tried to kill their husbands by feeding them a salad of the leaves.

The sap of many other plants was used in ancient warfare on the end of arrows and spears to ensure any would was fatal.

Many of the plants on display are used in modern medicine but the concentration that they are administered in is crucial.

Echo:

Several class A drugs are grown under license in this garden which is kept under lock and key, but they run educational courses for school children teaching them of the dangers of taking these drugs as Northumberland has the highest rate of drug related deaths per head in the country. Keep up the good work!

Having returned home I was quickly back to work in the garden, however whilst bending own to pull out a weed yesterday, I stabbed my eye on a bamboo cane that was supporting a young plant that I hadn’t seen. The pain was intense, and 6 hours at A&E and the eye clinic thankfully revealed that my eyesight has not been damaged in the long term although it will be several weeks before I am back to gardening without my eye patch.

It led me to do a little research on the internet where I discovered that there are over 2000 admissions to A&E a year due to accidents with bamboo canes, never mind how many other eye injuries are sustained from other things. It certainly has made me realise how lucky I have been and that wearing safety goggles when gardening would be a wise precaution.

In addition, I have placed a bulk order for the rubber protectors to slip on the end of bamboo canes to prevent the same thing happening again or to anyone else here at Green Island Gardens.

Simple rubber tips for bamboo canes can prevent nasty eye accidents.

The following statistics reveal just how common gardening injuries are:

1. Lawnmower (approx 7000 annual A&E visits)

2. Flowerpot (approx 6000 annual A&E visits)

3. Hedgetrimmers (approx 5000 annual A&E visits)

4. Secateurs / Pruners (approx 4500 annual A&E visits)

5. Spade (approx 4000 annual A&E visits)

6. Flower Trough (approx 2500 annual A&E visits)

7. Garden Fork (approx 2200 annual A&E visits)

8. Shears (approx 2000 annual A&E visits)

9. Hose or Sprinkler (approx 2000 annual A&E visits)

10. Garden Cane (approx 2000 annual A&E visits)

So, whilst gardening is one of the nation’s favourite pastimes, and has been proven to have therapeutic and healing benefits it can also be potentially very dangerous so it is wise to take certain precautions such as wearing good strong gloves, proper steel capped boots and safety goggles.