Plant 6,000 times More Toxic than Cyanide Found in Flowerbed in Wales

davidstockport From your link

Please note, castor oil seeds are poisonous, so wear gloves when handling. Castor beans must be sown early in the year, and ideally soaked for a few hours beforehand. Fill individual pots with peat-free seed compost, sow the castor bean seeds and place in a heated propagator to germinate. Castor seeds need 15 to 20°C and should germinate in two to six weeks. Pot on when seedlings are large enough to handle and move outdoors or plant up into containers or borders when all danger of frost has passed.

Caring for castor oil plant

Ricinus communis seedlings

Castor oil plant seedlings in individual pots

All parts of Ricinus communis are highly toxic so it’s very important to wear gloves when handling – it can irritate skin and eyes. Water plants regularly and feed with a liquid fertiliser every month. Plants are generally fast growing - Ricinus communis reaches 8-12m in height in tropical climes, but in a British garden, it is much smaller. Plants may need staking. Deadhead flowers if you don’t want to collect the seed. At the end of the season, discard plants on the compost heap, or move plants to a covered area under glass to grow on as a conservatory shrub.

Another link about the plant

It says four seeds ingested from the plant can kill an adult

hort.extension.wisc.edu/articles/castor-bean-ricinus-communis/

Personally i would not have one in my garden especially owning a dog

or if there were children about

But thanks for posting

telmel The worst that can usually happen is irritation to the eyes (as that article says) naturally it can kill if ingested but it is not a serious threat under normal circumstances. Green potatoes or stinging nettles are probably more of a hazard.

It was probably a no-news day when published and judging by the very ambiguous (and contradictory) grammar in the article was never even checked before publication, none of the POSITIVES of ricin were pointed out either. So here's some before you start demanding extermination of any plant containing it "Although it is a very potent poison, ricin has been investigated as an anti-cancer agent".

davidstockport I would never destroy any plant , possibly weeds, but again i would say i would not grow this plant in my garden, it is too risky to animals and children , even adults, hence the persons concern being in a council flowerbed

I think the article is very informative and may prevent harm to people not knowing about this plant previously, as with myself

telmel I don't know where you get your information from the article is obviously written by a very uneducated person.

It might of course have been the same person who wrote some article saying dolphins and octupuses were fish, which you passed on to members of this forum without any attempt to correct. I do suggest you get your information from more reliable sources otherwise people might think it is you who is the one who doesn't know that a dolphin is a mammal and an octopus is a very intelligent mollusk. (probably even knows a dolphin isn't a fish)

I must confess that the day after reading your "informative" twaddle I had a laugh when Mark Labbett said on The Chase that his five year old daughter knew the difference between a marine mammal and a fish. She probably knows an octopus isn't a fish too... you could contact her.

davidstockport Thank you for pointing that out

It should have read any type of fish and from octopus to dolphin , excuse the missed word , we are not all perfect

You should go on the chase yourself , you seem to like to chase me around a lot lately

davidstockport Oh, you are a very nice man

davidstockport Keep it up , you are doing a good job

davidstockport Wow now that would be one for the daily rags