Help with plant slection for the elderly

Hi All,

I have recently applied for a position maintaining the grounds at a local care home for the elderly. They have asked me to identify any plants that could cause breathlessness or allergic reactions. Could anyone supply a comprehensive list of plants to look out for, supply a link to a useful resource or give any other useful advice please.

Many thanks in advance, Chris

 

Are you the gardener or the health visitor ? I'd ask the inmates what flowers / plants they liked first then omit the ones that are iffy. My Sister is the house manager of "one of those places", I'll ask her. Cheers, Tony.

 

Hi Tony, thanks for your post. I would be the gardener, if your sister has any other information i'd really appreciate it. Do you know if there's a comprehensive list anywhere of plants that are, as you say 'iffy' :WINK1:

 

Does this place actually intend to avoid plants that might 'pose a risk'?

Roses - Banned. Fungal spores on them may enter the blood stream and cause an allergic reaction if someone scratches themselves on it. Same deal with any thorny plant.

Almost every flowering plant (with the possible exception of hybrids that are sterile) because some people will be allergic to their pollen.

Other than that, the only ones I can think of that might invoke an allergic reaction under the right circumstances would be, pretty much everything. Allergies are specific to the person. My sister-in-law ended up feeling very poorly indeed when I gave her some lovely hawthorn flowers. She's the only person I know that had a very significant allergic reaction to hawthorn flowers.

Given that pollen often goes airborne and can travel quite far, even if you strip the garden bare and concrete it over, you can possibly eliminate all common allergens from the garden.

Old people are just people. I don't think they go round sticking their faces in things that a lifetime of experience has taught them its a bad idea to stick their faces in.

 

it's a hard one, as many plants are poisionous if ingested

best is to supply this list and say you will not plant any of these:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_poisonous_plants

good luck! .... sounds like a nice job

 

That may explain why when I visit a sheltered accommodation housing there are only evergreen shrubs.
Interestingly this sheltered housing group have just founded their own gardening group and are looking for plants with lots of colour and preferably perennial.
Why not ask the residents how they feel about the content of their garden. You may be pleasantly surprised.

 

We all seem to have missed that Chris, has only APPLIED for the job of gardener
So he can not ask the residents,
To get the job, he has been advised to supply an impossible list of plants, that would cause asthma or allergies, all of them do to SOMEONE

It is the modern way, go for a road sweepers job, and you have to have an HGV PSV licence, quote the full highway code backwards, provide a list, of preventing heart attacks, using traffic cones and diagrams as props, and be fully conversant with Outer Mongolias, food chain supply

Hope you get the job, of Gardener/practisioner doctor soonest

Jack McH

 

Funnily enough, I remember way back in the 1980s my dad coming home in a stinking mood having just tried to apply for a coach driving job. His first job straight from school had got him through his driving test at 17 and had him driving the delivery wagon, apparently a beast of a machine with leaf spring suspension and nothing at all servo assisted. Since then he'd gone on to drive lorries, buses, coaches, insanely huge digger thingies in the steel works, and pretty much everything that anyone's ever thought of that runs on wheels or tracks. He fancied the cushy job he'd seen advertised simply taking coaches on the booze cruises. Despite being a driver commercially for all of his working life, and having driven coaches for several years without a single 'incident', he was asked what GCEs and A levels he had. Seems the bureaucracy isn't such a modern thing.