Colorado Poisonous Plants You Might Want To Avoid
Longmont, Colorado area landscapes {Monthly Series}
If you have animals or small children (under 5) in your home and they are outside in your yard, here are a few plants that are common in our Longmont Colorado landscapes that you may want to skip. Dogs and cats are pretty smart, but dogs are dumber! At least when it comes to munching on plants outside the house. Granted, there are exceptions to everything, but in general, most animals are smart enough to avoid poisonous plants. But dogs and cats may eat or nibble on plants for a variety of reasons. Instinct, boredom, curiosity, smell, and indigestion problems are a few reasons why they may eat outdoor plants. Cats and dogs will eat grass, sometime to help them vomit up something else they have eaten that they don’t like, or from illness, and this isn’t a problem. Cats will eat certain varieties of mint (catmint) and experience a euphoric calm and laziness (or go bat crazy) and this is fine too, though unknow if too much of a good thing is bad for them.
But there are several plants you may want to avoid in your landscape if your dog or cat has a propensity for eating things. Humans should avoid any berries and plants that are unknown. Children should be supervised as most plants are not good to eat but won’t necessarily cause death.
Here is the list:
Yew (plant and seed, but not the red fruit around the seed…not suggested to test!), Larkspur (Delphinium), Foxglove, Hydrangeas, Rhododendron (humans), Azalea, Juniper berries (that’s Gin!), Lily of the Valley (can kill dogs and humans), Soapwort, Leavy Spurge, Lupine, most other Lily, Daffodil and other Narcissus, Tulip bulbs, Monkshood (humans), and Virginia Creeper (gastroenteritis humans, especially children). This is just a partial list.
The best practices with children are to teach them never to eat anything they are not 100% sure of what it is. Ask an adult with knowledge of plants before eating anything in the wild. This of course goes for mushrooms without saying. Just never. For dogs and cats, they usually know best, but it is best to observe their behavior when young and trainable and to get them out of any habit of eating plants. Again, grasses are fine. As a last caveat, there are some mulches available that contain cocoa shells. We do not have them in bulk supply outlets here in Colorado, but they can be ordered online. Do not use them if you have dogs because they contain chemicals that are toxic to dogs, but not cats. This is the same reason we don’t give dogs chocolate. Cocoa is the ingredient that contains theobromine which is toxic.
If you have grazing animals on your property, use this resource for more information. Guide to Poisonous Plants – College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences – Colorado State University
Some photos by Keith Williamson of Little Valley Wholesale Nursery.
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