Shadehouse "pond"

[Optimist]

I remember reading this romance novel set in ancient Egypt. The hero, a General of some sort, was being chased by a troop of his enemies, and as his people left an oasis, he threw a bunch of oleander into the water supply and killed all the men and horses.

I have no idea whether it is really as toxic as that. I tend to remember bits and pieces of silly things.

[rbarata]

I have no idea whether it is really as toxic as that.

In wikipedia it says a single leaf is enough to kill an 80 kg human but fatal cases are not common because one of the symptoms of intoxication are vomits, which expel the leaves.
Fatal cases occurr when, for example, one eats an animal that had previously eaten such plant (snails, for ex).

[estación seca]

Oleander smoke is toxic. People have been reported to become sick cooking food on oleander skewers.

It contains a chemical similar to digitalis, which is from foxglove - in a different plant family. Affected animals die of irregular heartbeats. The plant family Apocynaceae, to which Nerium oleander belongs, has lots of species that make nasty poisons.

Historians have wondered whether Van Gogh had digitalis toxicity. One symptom of digitalis toxicity is seeing yellow circles around bright objects, as in the painting Starry Night. It is known he was prescribed it by his doctor, and Van Gogh painted a portrait of his doctor holding a sprig of foxglove.

[No-Pro-mwa]

What lovely Lilly's. Sorry they died and you had to start over.

[Leafmite]

I have no idea why plants that are potentially deadly are sold but even Monkshood is available for the garden. Yes, really.

Thanks about the pond plants. We had a very cold winter 2013-2014 and it took care of the lotus and other pond plants wintering in the garage. I lost herbs that had been happily growing for over twenty years. The big tragedy, though, was that many area people lost their fig trees. I felt pretty fortunate. Now that I have figs, I grow them indoors during the winter because of this.

[estación seca]

Originally Posted by Leafmite

I have no idea why plants that are potentially deadly are sold but even Monkshood is available for the garden. Yes, really.

Well... there are many, many toxic plants everywhere in the world. Almost nobody dies eating toxic plants. Millions of people are killed with the fork, but we don't try and ban forks.

Sorry about the fig trees. A few years back a friend in the Bronx lost a fig his grandfather brought from Sicily when he immigrated here.

[Optimist]

Millions killed with forks? Do you mean by over eating, or by getting stabbed?

[estación seca]

Overeating. It's the most dangerous weapon on Earth right now.

[u bada]

Sacred Datura or jimson weed is another highly poisonous weed used in gardens in west coast... well not so much now maybe... but fun thing is it's highly hallucinogenic (traditional uses of native people along west coast were for shamansitc/ medicinal related uses)... but much of the nightshade family group are used as ornamentals... and even crops...

Leafmite, what an adorable little water garden! Reminds me of when i was growing up when i had a little water garden in a half barrel- had some shubunkins, a dwarf tropical water lily (estacion and i were discussing the other month, it's called dauben blue really awesome little lily), and a hoard of other water plants... frogbit, water hyacinth (had to throw that stuff out a lot grows so fast), water lettuce, anacharis, an aponogeton, so much... grew up in OH, so i remember having to take stuff in and over winter... oof that's a job...

We have a lot of fish in the household, something like 10x tanks, 6 of which are for fish... you'd think that would raise the humidity of our apt/ condo but the fish are under the other half's jurisdiction and he's been covering them more tightly to deal with water loss other wise he's filling them every few days LOL

mosquito fish can apparently handle up to 100+ degree water, and salinity levels higher than general sea water for some periods of time! They supposedly offer them for free here in LA.

Optimist, great idea about the pond for the growing area. If I had space on my tiny balcony for the outdoor stuff, I'd do the same...

[No-Pro-mwa]

If there were no poison plants there would not be as many Snapped episodes. You do know woman are more pron to use poison right. Caster bean anyone?????