Euphorbia - a serious warning

[braeside]

Sorry to hear about that David, hope you will make a full recovery soon.

We have giant hogweed in the field beside us and I know how dangerous that can be, it sensitises the skin to sunlight and causes burns.

I will look up Euphorbia and make sure we don't have any just in case.

[harvey]

Last year I also tolerated a 10 ft tall giant hogweed.

My mother used to phone the local council to get them to remove it from anywhere she thought that children might get too close to it. If I remember correctly you can get the sap on you and it gets nasty on exposure to sunlight.

[braeside]

I have also been in touch with the council and the farmer about these giant hogweed plants - unfortunately they don't seem that concerned. I have sprayed them in the past but they keep coming back and are spreading. The farmer just cut them down, spreading the seeds about. The council did spray them, but too late in the year.
They are everywhere around here, they spread along the burns from the linen mills (that was before my time), so I was told.

[David Kilpatrick]

I got the gardening team who call a couple of times a year here to cut down tree growth and do weed spraying to remove the giant hogweed. It may be dangerous, but a full size one at 10-12 feet is impressive and the bees love the flowers. Same goes for the euphorbia - I left them because although they are a self-set wild plant, my 'variety' is quite beautiful and bees also benefit in flower. I had a brief recurrence of the eye smart when driving the next day, and stopped to get eyedrops at a service station (major motorway, M6). Incredible that no service stations had any eye drops - either in the main centre shops, or the filling station shop. You would think that eyedrops (like the Blink capsules I normally carry when travelling) would be a standard item for motorway service area retail. Fortunately it subsided after an hour or so and has not come back.

Our garden has some interesting planted, wild or escaped plants - woody nightshade, foxglove, mullein, fewerfew, mallow, tansy, asclepius, broom, St John's Wort, huge poppies, laurel and no doubt countless more I do not recognise. A surprising number turn out to be medicinal, narcotic or poisonous and most are fairly photogenic at one time of year or another. I don't cut stuff down much at this time of year because bees and butterflies really need help right now, so we have about 60 sq metres of totally wild nettles and things (too high to even try to walk into) - buzzing with insect life.

We also have some new larger bats. We have always had very small bats (pipistrelle, I think) but this year there are bigger ones. I have never managed to photograph a bat and can't think of any way it would be possible.

I'm thinking that the eurphorbia incident might have been a lucky escape for our gardening duo. When they clear big weeds and brush, they bring a shredder/chipper. Feeding these into that could have released so much of the sap and sprayed it all round. But I guess they would have been aware. I think the council garden waste recycling crew will have been safe, they just grab the special wheelie-bin and fit it to a tilt loader on the back of their truck, and don't come into contact with contents. We get a weekly collection of one garden waste bin from April 1st to September 30th.

David

[Dr. Harout]

Every time I'm busy and do not check photoclubalpha something happens...
My brother whom I haven't seen for a year paid a visit, so I had no time for my beloved forum...
Get well soon, and do send me a PM next time something is needed urgently (though I really hope there won't be any "next time").
The least I can do is to show you a way or tell you where or to whom to refer.
Or you could send me a shot of the affection and I'll be right with you buddy.
For the time, try some Cognac (to drink, of course)

[Winston]

David, I think you need to publish here a photo tour of your garden.

[David Kilpatrick]

Every time I'm busy and do not check photoclubalpha something happens...
My brother whom I haven't seen for a year paid a visit, so I had no time for my beloved forum...
Get well soon, and do send me a PM next time something is needed urgently (though I really hope there won't be any "next time").
The least I can do is to show you a way or tell you where or to whom to refer.
Or you could send me a shot of the affection and I'll be right with you buddy.
For the time, try some Cognac (to drink, of course)

Sure, I'll nip out and break up another euphorbia and rub it well into my arms - two hours later you would have a great pic for the skin condition library!

It is supposed to cause phytophotosensitivity, leading to sunburn if you leave the stuff on and go out in normal daylight.

But I think I'll avoid conducting any experiments to find out!

David

[David Kilpatrick]

David, I think you need to publish here a photo tour of your garden.

Most people would recognise it as 'weeds'. See:

http://www.pbase.com/gemo52/snaps

The first half of this gallery consists of Shirley's quick closeups of flowers, but not many of the pernicious weeds get a look in - only foxglove.

David

[Winston]

Most people would recognise it as 'weeds'. See:

http://www.pbase.com/gemo52/snaps

The first half of this gallery consists of Shirley's quick closeups of flowers, but not many of the pernicious weeds get a look in - only foxglove.

David

Shirley's closups are nice. but not what I had in mind.

When I landscaped my yard over thirty years ago, I often wondered who was going to enjoy all the knee-high trees that I planted when they matured. This was from the perspective of some who had never lived anywhere for more than five years.

That was thirty-two years ago and I'm still here. I wouldn't use a macro to show you how it turned out.