Does gardening irritate you?

IN THE GARDEN

I find summer is the least arduous season in the garden — other than winter, of course. It’s puttering season.

Flower beds are well mulched so there are only a few weeds to pull and planters and pots to water; otherwise I spend my time snipping. I might snip a few flowers for display but mostly I snip spent blooms, a process known as deadheading, which sounds ominous, but it’s nothing more than keeping plants tidy, and it can also ensure a longer bloom time on some plants.

Perennials like delphinium, lupines, and phlox will often produce a few more flowers if the old ones are removed — even cut back by half in the case of the latter. Many of the newer hybrids and plants such as impatiens don’t need attention as they’re considered self cleaning, the blossoms neatly falling away on their own.

I deadhead flowers before they go to seed, especially if they’re liable to take over the whole garden.

It’s during this puttering and snipping where I’m up close with plants and I can both admire them more intently and keep a lookout for troublesome insects or the onset of any disease. Snipping and cutting, sometimes pruning, means being in contact, and this can be a problem for some gardeners. There are many plants that can be especially irritating, and I don’t mean ones you wish you hadn’t planted because the colour clashes with the new patio furniture. I’m talking about the ones that irritate the skin.

Fortunately, I’m rarely bothered, but for anyone with sensitive skin it can be an unpleasant, even serious experience.

Direct contact with the sap, or simply brushing against a plant may cause a reaction, producing what might feel like a severe sunburn, a rash, or painful blisters. This is especially so with plants that have phototoxic sap. That means the reaction takes place after the skin is exposed to sunlight.

The most notorious is giant hogweed, not normally found in the average garden. There are other less conspicuous ones to be aware of that may be happily growing in your flower bed or vegetable garden, planted there by you or by a previous gardener.

Rue, for instance, is a traditional plant with a history of medical use or as an herb, and it’s been said to repel cats and other animals, though there’s little evidence that it does. It’s a pretty enough plant that can be used as an ornamental and might still be found in garden centres, but it’s one to avoid by anyone likely to have a reaction.

A less obvious phototoxic plant is parsnip, and who doesn’t love this vegetable, especially after it’s wintered over in the garden when it sweetens up. Eating them is fine. It’s the foliage that’s the problem.

There are plants that are not phototoxic, but equally troublesome. Poison ivy, for instance; and stinging nettles, the bane of my childhood. They might not be garden plants, at least not planted on purpose, but they can show up to surprise you, especially in an untended corner, even a well tended one as a friend of mine discovered the other day.

In the flower garden, you might have plants in the euphorbia family. Also known as spurge, they’re popular and available in

all forms from ground covers to tall statement plants. The milky sap is a form of latex, a common irritant for many.

Skin irritation varies from person to person, as even daffodils, hyacinths and yarrow can be troublesome to some.

The obvious answer is to always wear gloves when snipping and pruning, and to know which of your plants has a dark side.

You might recognize your parsnips, but what about that innocent looking weed?

Who knew puttering in the garden could be such an edgy, high-risk pastime?

My garden will be open on Sunday, July 23, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Monday, July 24, 2 to 8 p.m. Address is 162 Herron Place, Waterloo.