Garden Care and Safety
Safety in the Garden
Garden safety for families: poisonous plants and berries, tools, ponds, water butts and chemicals, with the checks that make a garden safe for young children.
A garden is a good place for a child and also a place full of small hazards, most of which are easy to remove once they are named. This guide covers the risks that matter most with young children: poisonous plants and berries, tools, water, chemicals and the everyday things that get overlooked. The aim is not to make a garden sterile, but to make the few serious dangers visible and then get on with playing.
Poisonous plants and berries
Many common garden plants carry toxins, and the risk is highest with children young enough to put things in their mouths. The seeds, leaves, bulbs and berries are often the dangerous parts. Well known examples include foxglove, laburnum, yew, privet, deadly nightshade, castor oil plant, monkshood, and the bulbs of daffodil and hyacinth. Rhubarb leaves and potato foliage are not edible, and green potatoes should not be eaten.
The practical step is to walk the garden and note what is growing, then decide what to move or remove. Keep bulbs out of reach while planting, and wash hands after handling them. If a child eats a plant and there is any doubt, call a doctor or a poison information service straight away and take a piece of the plant with you if it is safe to do so. Do not wait for symptoms. A printable list of toxic plants, checked against a local source, is worth keeping in a kitchen drawer.
Tools and equipment
Sharp tools, long handled forks and spades, and power tools such as a mower or a strimmer should be kept locked away and used only when children are elsewhere. A child can use a small trowel and a hand fork, but a full size fork left in the ground is a danger if someone falls on it. Store tools with the blade down or hanging on a rack, not leaning against a wall. Check handles for splinters and replace anything cracked.
Teach children how to carry a tool safely, pointing down and away from the body, and never leave a rake lying teeth up. A small first aid kit kept in the shed, with plasters and a way to wash a cut, saves a walk indoors for a graze.
Water, ponds and water butts
Water is the most serious risk in a family garden. A young child can drown in a few centimetres of water, so a pond needs a fence, a rigid mesh cover or a raised edge, and a child should never be left alone near it. Water butts and rain barrels need a firmly fixed lid, because they are deep and often overlooked. Buckets, paddling pools and wheelbarrows should be emptied as soon as they are finished with, not left full.
A water feature, however shallow, is best fenced or covered while children are small, and reopened when they are older. The guide to making a wildlife garden covers how to give birds and insects water safely, using a shallow dish rather than an open pond.
Chemicals and slug pellets
Garden chemicals, including weedkillers, insecticides and slug pellets, are a real hazard to children and to pets. The safest approach is not to use them where children play. Where a problem has to be managed, choose the least harmful method and store any product in a locked cupboard, in its original labelled container, well away from food. Never decant a chemical into a drink bottle.
Slugs can be managed without pellets, using barriers, traps and timing, and the guide to organic slug control sets out how. That approach removes a common source of accidental poisoning from a family garden.
Other everyday risks
A few smaller points round out the list. Keep the garden free of broken glass, rusty nails and old wire, and check a sandpit before use. Cover a drain or a soakaway. Fix a wobbly fence panel and any loose paving. Keep children away from a bonfire, a barbecue and a lit patio heater. Check that climbing frames and trampolines are on soft ground and well maintained, and that a child cannot reach a road from the garden.
Plants with thorns, such as roses and berberis, are worth keeping out of a toddler's reach, and prickly hedges should be trimmed back from a path. A child who is old enough to understand can be taught which plants to avoid, and why, in the same way they are taught about roads and hot taps.
A short checklist before play
It helps to run the same quick check each time children go out, so nothing depends on memory. Look at the ground for broken glass, nails, stones and animal mess. Check that the sandpit is covered or clean, and that the lid is secure when it is not in use. Make sure the water butt lid is on, that buckets and paddling pools are empty, and that the pond cover or fence is intact. Put away any tool that is not being used, and close the shed. Check that no chemical container has been left out, and that the barbecue is cold.
The check takes a minute and removes almost every serious risk. Do it once with the children watching, and explain what is being looked for and why, so that older children can take on the check themselves as they grow.
Making the garden safe without making it dull
None of this means stripping a garden bare. Most of the work is done once: move a few plants, fit a pond cover, lock the shed, put the chemicals out of reach. After that, the garden is simply a garden, and a child can dig, plant and eat what grows without an adult watching every move. The hub on garden care and safety places this page with the other guides to keeping a family garden in good order.