I am wondering that also because my sister in CA has a new red cattle dog{{gwi:807}} puppy{{gwi:807}} and my sister loves to grow Brugmansia. You might have better luck searching for info if you use the name datura or brugmansia. When I grew them the thorny ball popped open when it was ripe and shot the seeds out.

There are posts on this forum about it being illegal to grow them in Oklahoma.

Here is a link that might be useful: old post about them

This post was edited by helenh on Sun, Jan 13, 13 at 11:07

I only grow daturas in areas where the dogs never, ever go, and those areas are fenced off so the dogs cannot get to them unless I open the garden gate and accidnetally leave it open, but even then the dogs are in a fenced dog yard so they couldn't run into the garden unless someone let them out of the dog yard. The garden fence is 8' tall so that they cannot jump it. Our dogs have a fenced dog yard and the only time we let them out of it to run, play ball and swim in the pond, we are with them at all times and the daturas are locked up in the garden. I do have two brugmansias in pots on the patio that the dogs run right by on their way to the open area behind the garage where we take them to play, and they have never paid the least bit of attention to those brugs, but even so they are not alone as they run past those two large containers....we are right there with them.

Anything else that is potentially toxic is not planted out in the open where the pets roam. The cats follow me around the fenced garden, but they don't eat many plants. I plant cat grass, catnip and catmint and a few other herbs for them and they will chew on those, lay on them, roll on them, etc. but otherwise they're not that interesting in the garden other than just hanging around and chasing each other through the plants. About the only veggies the cats will eat are bean sprouts, so I have to cover the young bean sprouts with floating row cover to protect them from the cats until the plants get a few days older.

I wouldn't plant datura anywhere that a dog could access it. I just think it is too big of a risk. However, some animals, like deer, nibbled at my daturas before I moved all of them to the fenced garden and I never found a dead deer lying around on the property. It just isn't a risk I'd want to expose the dogs to. I love Castor bean plants too, but when I plant them, I also plant them in areas where the dogs cannot get to them. I feel like it is better to be safe than sorry.

Thank you so much. I will return this to my friend.

I wonder if she knew that it was dangerous, and if that is why she told me that I should google it to find out how to grow it.

Oh, well.

Her heart was in the right place, I am sure, but this was rather careless of her. I don't think she has children or dogs. I sure don't want it around.

This has been a huge help. Thank you so much.

Sammy

I have never had any creature try to eat mine, even when I grew it in the front yard. The white version that I have grown has a distinct smell to it. Kind of like peanut butter, but not an "oh I want to eat it" smell.

I have it in a couple places next to the house. Never a problem for the dog or kids. Its close enough that we can watch the moths around it just after sunset. The deer ate one down pretty bad last year.

Bad for pets but good for the eyes
I plant mine around the hot tub
at night it's like little hummers
are everywhere
hummingbird moths
bumblebee moths
light up the night
tree

Sammy, Glad we all were able to help.

Lisa, I grow it with plants that have many delicious fragrances. One thing I have learned about deer is that in a drought year they will eat anything and everything, including plants they normally wouldn't touch.

Scott, I've never seen my dogs try to eat it, but I just feel better knowing they cannot reach it, because I do have one dog who thinks that green tomatoes are tennis balls and he likes to pull them and play with them. I don't think he'd ever touch one of those spiny seed capsules on jimsonweed, but I wouldn't want to find out that I was wrong about that.

Seeker, I agree. I have it in a moon-garden with other night-blooming flowers like moonflower vine, mignonette, several kinds of flowering nicotines, and four o'clocks. We have more hummingbird moths than you can count out there at night. It is one of my favorite plants because you just cannot find those trumpet-shaped flowers anyplace else. At our house they are planted far from any outdoor light source, but those bright white flowers shine in the natural light from the moon and the stars.

Dawn

Deer, fortunately, are not a problem in my neighborhood :)

One has to ingest the leaves or seeds for it to be dangerous to be around. I've had mine for years, with neighbor's dogs, cats, and other animals around it, no problem.

That said, kids are experimenting with the seed pods - ingesting or smoking them - supposedly for some kind of hallucenogenic "high". Mine tends to reseed, so I've always been in the habit of deadheading it so I don't get the seed pods. If I don't, I get lots of little unwanted seedlings. Also, the plant blooms more frequently if deadheaded.

Datura species are members of the Solanaceae family. Eating potato or tomato foliage would be just as toxic, containing the same alkaloids. Yes, tomato leaves are not very good for you, lol! Neither is anything else in this family, like peppers, Flowering Tobacco, 4 o'clocks, Brugmansias, et seq.

The main toxins in Datura are scopolamine and atropine. These chemicals are still used in modern medicine. Scopolamine is a drug used in anesthesia to keep a patient immobile (known as the "Zombie" drug), and atropine is a well known heart medicine used to increase the heart rate.

With that in mind, no one should ever intentionally ingest Datura in its natural form. Usually the foliage has a bad odor, and the seed pods are too prickly for an animal to even attempt to consume them.

Datura has kind of had a bad rap in the news resulting from young people who have eaten either the leaves or seeds and had horrible reactions.

A lot of plants in our gardens are toxic and include, but are not limited to, the following:

4 o'clocks
Agave
Crocus
Daffodils
Azaleas and Rhododendrons
Boston Ivy
Caladiums
Calla lilies
Lobelias
Carolina Jessamine
Castor Beans
Foxgloves
Ground Cherries
Philodendron
Heather
Heliotrope
Hellebore
Hydrangea
Lantana
Larkspur
Mayapple
Colchicum
Oleander
Periwinkles
Scilla
Poppies
Vinca
Yews
Lily-of-the-Valley
Peonies
Wisteria
Mums

Some of the most poisonous fruit trees are cherries, apples, and peaches. The leaves, bark, and seeds contain cyanide. Beware of Iris, Hyacinth, and Tulips because they also contain cyanide.

Another surprise - Sweet Peas - the seeds contain neurotoxins. Oh, my poor brain!

My beloved milkweeds are toxic as well, containing cardiac glycosides, that can be fatal if enough is ingested. I am cautious when working with these plants. Some milkweeds, as I'm sure is true of most plants, are more toxic than others.

Anyway, there are far too many plants out there that contain poisons, whether the entire plant, or just the seeds, or just the flowers........ I try to be as careful as I can when working in the garden, and go in and out for frequent hand washings anyway.

I'm attaching an interesting read about Datura for you.

Susan

Here is a link that might be useful: The Powerful Solanaceae - Datura