Mindy Hammond
Every week in S Magazine Our columnist on why the flowers are growing so wildly and the dangers of ragwort
Whilst driving around the countryside this summer, I noticed there appeared to be an unusually large amount of wild flowers growing on verges, in hedgerows and even on roundabouts.
Maybe because we had such a damp spring?
Even in the garden plants produced flowers which I’d never seen before
(I had no idea the enormous green bush in the centre of the flowerbed was a yellow flowering peony!) and some of my beloved hollyhocks had grown more than 8ft high.
Our ponds were surrounded by swathes of ox eye daisies, cornflowers and red poppies which seemed to be everywhere, both wild and cultivated. They grew from just about any centimetre of soil – on driveways, between paving slabs and even on the stable yard, adding a lovely splash of colour.
Pink, blue and white flowers are more than welcome, but there’s a certain yellow-flowering plant which makes my blood run cold. It can reach 90cm high and insects love it, but it is a worry to anyone with livestock and the bane of any horse-owners life. It is called ragwort and is toxic to deer, goats, sheep, pigs, cattle, horses and even chickens. Even a small amount can cause irreparable liver damage in horses and if it is eaten by cattle it can take more than a year for them to show symptoms.
Thankfully, animals avoid eating it as it has a bitter taste, but should ragwort be growing in hay and be cut and dried, it becomes more palatable and the result is just as tragic.
This summer saw the stuff spread like crazy – it was so bad in Rutland the county council requested that residents report any ragwort which could pose a threat to livestock and we can only hope other councils follow their lead.
It worried me when I overheard someone chatting about planting a wildflower meadow recently, including ragwort in their scheme – it really isn’t a good idea. Even though the RHS states, “It is not usually a significant problem in gardens.”
Sorry chaps, I strongly disagree. Not only does it spread like crazy, it is also notoriously difficult to kill. In fact, as any horse-owner will know, there is a specially designed fork (ours is, not surprisingly, yellow) which we use to
nd dig plants up by the roots, then we burn the whole plants, as advised by Defra. We can’t spray the plants in paddocks as, when they begin to wilt, they can become tasty to horses.
This year, for the first time in 16 years, we didn’t just have a couple of plants, we had lots of them and when I discovered a single plant can produce 150,000 seeds, I was convinced there was just one monster plant growing nearby and a lonesome cow sneezed on it, sending the seeds into a gust of September wind and depositing the lot in our fields. Apparently the seeds can be viable for up to 20 years – so did the spring rain cause a ragwort explosion, bringing dormant plants to life like those terrifying triffids?
I can’t imagine anyone keen to chomp into ragwort, but that doesn’t make it safe for humans. The advice is to wear a face mask and gloves when dealing with it and keep away dogs and cats. It’s so toxic, it can be fatal if they eat just a tiny bit.
Nasty stuff it may be, but in the Middle Ages it was apparently used to treat inflammation of the eye, ulcers, rheumatism, sciatica, gout and painful joints – an it was mixed with pig fat to make an ointment or with water for a gargle. (Careful not to swallow, I’d imagine!)
Madness. In Ireland, where it is called the Buachalán Buíde, legend named it “the fairy horse” and children were warned not to touch it for fear they would be spirited away by the fairies on their yellow horses. Stories were told about travellers who were caught by the fairies and forced to ride down dark lanes and through whipping midnight forests, only to awaken, exhausted and lashed, clutching a fistful of ragwort. Cows were never lashed with a buachalán whip because the fairies would steal their milk. And according to legend, the favourite place for a leprechaun to mend his shoes on a summer’s morning is on top of a ragwort. Not in my garden – he can sit on a sunflower instead.