Pets’ Corner: Keeping a Pet Friendly Garden

10th Apr 2009

Pets’ Corner: Keeping a Pet Friendly Garden

Some garden plants are fine for small pets to feed on, but not all. The typical summer bed or border can conceal a number of plants that are as poisonous for small pets as they are pretty for us to look like. How can we protect small pets from inadvertently eating the wrong thing?

 
Most petfoods provide a complete diet – that is 100% of the Recommended Daily Allowances   required to keep a pet healthy and well. But pet rabbits and guinea-pigs do like to forage on hay and appreciate the occasional greens too. In the summer, there’s more opportunity to feed small pets fresh greens, but it’s important to know which plants are OK to feed or give your pet access to. Many common garden plants are quite poisonous and as pets like rabbits can’t be sick, they are very vulnerable.
There’s no surprise that Deadly Nightshade or Hemlock should be avoided, but it may be a surprise that Elder, one of the countryside’s most prolific hedgerow plants, is in fact poisonous to small pets. Lobelia is one of the UK’s most popular bedding plants, found in most gardens but it too is very bad for pets.
 
More information on poisonous plants will be available from most good garden centres, libraries or you can download a PDF Leaflet on small pets and poisonous plants from smallanimaladvice.com. Typical problem plants are:
Anemone, antirrhinums, azalea, bittersweet, bryony, bluebells, buttercups, caladium, chrysanthemums, clematis, cyclamen, columbine, daffodils, dahlias, delphiniums, dog mercury, figwort, floxgove, fools parsley, hyacinth, hellebores, holly, iris, ivy, St John’s wort, juniper, kingcup, laburnum, leyland cypress, lupin, lily of the valley, lords & ladies, marsh marigold, monkshood, meadow saffron, mistletoe, woody nightshade, privet, poppies, ragwort, rhodedendron spurges, tulips, wisteria, yew.

The simple way around the problem is to separate your pets from any garden plants by using a chicken wire barrier. Never feed your pet a plant you don’t recognise or know to be safe. If you think your pet has eaten something bad for it, always consult the vet and ideally take along a sample of any plants that might have been consumed.