How poisonous are these seeds? They do seem to get everywhere. Would I
be
best off getting rid of the tree?

(Obviously she isn't left to wander around the garden by herself, but she
does like shoving things in her mouth.)

ROSIE

At the end of the day, it is your decision as to whether or not to remove
poisonous plants from your own garden.

When I was a childminder, I was not allowed to have anything poisonous in my
garden. The fact I watched minded children like a hawk was beside the
point! Social Services provided childminders with a list of recognised
poisonous plants.

I don't childmind any more but still have young children of my own. I kill
off the nightshade that grows thro my fence from force of habit and having
paranoia drummed into me as a child as to "how terribly poisonous" this was.
But I don't worry about anything else - foxgloves grow quite happily in one
corner. I have a laurel tree overhanging the garden and it dumps it's
berries on my lawn annually. The kids know that they are not allowed to
even touch any berries of any kind without my permission. Until they were
old enough to understand that, they were supervised pretty closely anyway.
In fact if I even mention the word poisonous now, they steer well clear of
such things. The problem comes when I have a friend's child over and they
don't understand these things.

I grew up having a reasonable knowledge of and respect for what was and
wasn't poisonous - and therefore what is and isn't edible! I teach my kids
the same. Obviously, they could do anything the moment your back is turned
and you know your own child best. Because I now use all sorts of berries,
leaves and herbs from the wild for wine, jam and general cooking, they also
learn from me about the safety of plants. And there's nothing like picking
rosehips with your kids and introducing them to the itching powder effect of
the hairs inside the fruit!

I understand that apple leaves are poisonous to a degree and removed one of
those from my baby son's mouth once (that baby is now 9). But then he also
had a liking for woodlice.............

I belong to the Alan Titchmarsh school of thought that it is better to
educate children about the dangers of plants rather than remove them
altogether.

Vicky