I have been a silly billy and bought a potato vine (solanum glasnevin) thinking it was a clematis. Am I correct in thinking it is a bit of a thug? Should I cmpost it, give it away with a warning or grow it. Has anyone on the forum any experience with it?
I grew mine in a large pot for a couple of years - seemed to like it (extremely floriferous) and easy to control. It went in the ground last spring and failed to flower but looks covered in buds right now.
A trowel in the hand is worth a thousand lost under a bush.
Thanks to Dove, Bob and Gina - the decision has been made to keep it. I have put it in a large pot to control it and I am also famous for cutting things back (plants quiver with fright when I appear with the secateurs).
If all else fails and it tries to control me then I can burn it as arneil's MIL insisted.
It's funny, one countries desired plants are another's weeds. I grew up in Pennsylvania, where Solanum dulcamara grows over everything it can. Last summer I was visiting my parents with my little boys, and we spent half a day pulling it out of their small woods to ensure my boys didn't accidentally eat a berry. They aren't fatal (at least, no one has ever eaten enough to kill them-self), and I've read they taste pretty bad.. but they will make a little one pretty sick. The 'wild' red currents were all fruiting at the time, and I was worried the three year old would mistake the same sized Solanum red berry for a current (which he happily ate the bitter under-ripe ones with no apparent dislike, so I wasn't sure the bitterness of the nightshade would be off-putting).
If you do have little ones, just call the solanum glasnevin poison berries.. as my parents did.. that way when they are big enough to play out on their own, they won't 'forage' from unknown plants.
arneil, if you dug up everything in the garden which was poisonous, they'd be pretty empty. No more yew, or privet, sorbus, or rhubarb ( leaves) most bulbs , the list goes on.
Hostafan I knew it wasn't any worse than laburnum for example ,( I sampled it as a child with no ill effects !) but she was a pretty determined lady , I found a bit of solanum sown by the birds and have left it , I isn't flourishing so may get the chop soon
. Am I correct in thinking it is a bit of a thug? Should I cmpost it, give it away with a warning or grow it. Has anyone on the forum any experience with it?
Posts
Grow it - it can be gorgeous - is it the Glasnevin one? http://www.telegraph.co.uk/gardening/howtogrow/7846747/How-to-grow-Solanum-crispum-Glasnevin.html
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Silly me - I should have read your post properly - it is the Glasnevin one
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
I grew mine in a large pot for a couple of years - seemed to like it (extremely floriferous) and easy to control. It went in the ground last spring and failed to flower but looks covered in buds right now.
poisonous plant ? My MIL made me dig it out and burn it , I liked it
Got one in a large pot too, looks really lovely and just needs a bit of pruning.
Thanks to Dove, Bob and Gina - the decision has been made to keep it. I have put it in a large pot to control it and I am also famous for cutting things back (plants quiver with fright when I appear with the secateurs).
If all else fails and it tries to control me then I can burn it as arneil's MIL insisted.
It's funny, one countries desired plants are another's weeds. I grew up in Pennsylvania, where Solanum dulcamara grows over everything it can. Last summer I was visiting my parents with my little boys, and we spent half a day pulling it out of their small woods to ensure my boys didn't accidentally eat a berry. They aren't fatal (at least, no one has ever eaten enough to kill them-self), and I've read they taste pretty bad.. but they will make a little one pretty sick. The 'wild' red currents were all fruiting at the time, and I was worried the three year old would mistake the same sized Solanum red berry for a current (which he happily ate the bitter under-ripe ones with no apparent dislike, so I wasn't sure the bitterness of the nightshade would be off-putting).
If you do have little ones, just call the solanum glasnevin poison berries.. as my parents did.. that way when they are big enough to play out on their own, they won't 'forage' from unknown plants.
arneil, if you dug up everything in the garden which was poisonous, they'd be pretty empty. No more yew, or privet, sorbus, or rhubarb ( leaves) most bulbs , the list goes on.
Hostafan I knew it wasn't any worse than laburnum for example ,( I sampled it as a child with no ill effects !) but she was a pretty determined lady , I found a bit of solanum sown by the birds and have left it , I isn't flourishing so may get the chop soon