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Privet is a popular garden plant. It is easy to care for and robust, fast-growing and also cheap and easy to cut. Therefore, it is also often used as a privacy screen in the form of a privet hedge. But is that safe? Or is the privet poisonous to humans and animals? Interested readers can find out here what is important when plant parts have been picked up and what needs to be considered before planting.
toxicity
Toxic or not?
All parts of the privet are slightly poisonous to mammals and birds. For humans, this does not play a decisive role in the case of bark and leaves. However, pets should be kept away from it. The situation is different with the round berries. These can be quite dangerous for children. But adults who mistake the fruit for edible berries also risk poisoning. Touching the shrub or a privet hedge, on the other hand, is completely harmless for humans and animals - the substances only become toxic when ingested.
Privet hedge is easy to maintain
For animals
Dogs, cats, mice - but also hamsters, guinea pigs, rabbits, horses and birds can poison themselves with Ligustrum vulgare, as the plant is called in botanical jargon. Young or very playful cats and dogs may use the twigs as chews or pick up the poison by playfully tearing off the leaves. However, rodents, rabbits and horses are at risk of looking at leaves and twigs as food. For dogs and birds, the berries of the shrub are more of a potential threat. It is therefore not advisable for pets to run around unsupervised in the garden or in areas with privet bushes or hedges.
cat in the garden
Toxic dose
According to the University Hospital Bonn, the critical dose for small children or people is not known. A quantity of up to five privet berries is usually tolerated without any problems. However, if children or animals ingest the berries or other poisonous parts of the plant unnoticed, it is difficult to determine the amount. It should also be borne in mind that each individual can react differently to the poison. What is harmless for one person can already cause severe symptoms of poisoning for another.
symptoms
Possible symptoms of Ligustrum vulgare poisoning in both humans and animals include, but are not limited to.
- irritation of the mucous membranes
- increase in body temperature
- stomach pain
- nausea
- Vomit
- diarrhea
- a headache
- low blood pressure
- Sweating with cool or cold skin at the same time
- convulsions and seizures
- severe irritation of the gastrointestinal tract
- dilation of the pupils
- tachycardia
Not all symptoms have to be present to indicate poisoning. If the person concerned was unobserved in the vicinity of privet plants, appropriate countermeasures should already be taken if there are few and slight signs.
First aid measures
If there is a suspicion of poisoning with Ligustrum vulgare, a doctor or veterinarian should be consulted immediately. On the way there, it is advisable to let the affected person drink a lot. In this way, the ingested toxins are diluted. The doctor will perform detoxification if necessary and administer charcoal to absorb the toxins.
Although the ingestion of small amounts of privet berries or leaves does not usually lead to severe symptoms of poisoning, an immediate visit to the doctor is still advisable. On the one hand, it is often not known how large the amount really was. On the other hand, living beings react differently to it. Caution is therefore required, especially with creatures with previous illnesses, small children and animals with a low body weight.
Privet hedge in the garden
prevention
The risk of ingesting Ligustrum vulgare can be reduced in advance if the following measures are taken into account.
- do without the privet hedge at the edges of pastures and where rodents and rabbits run out
- keep playful children and pets away, if necessary delimit the plants or do without them in the garden altogether
- Pruning the privet hedge regularly, this prevents the formation of flowers and thus the emergence of the berries
sources
- https://www.botanikus.de/Botanik3/Ordnung/Liguster/liguster.html
- http://www.gizbonn.de/171.0.html
- https://naturalhorse.de/giftplants-the-underestimated-hazard.html