Yew

Garden waste dumped near paddocks, pasture or bridle paths; yew growing on a boundary within reach across a fence; dried yew foliage in hay or bedding; sudden unexplained death or collapse in animals with access to a hedge.

A veterinary emergency with no antidote and a poor prognosis once signs appear - call a veterinarian immediately and name the plant. Remove all remaining animals from the source at once. Prevention is the only reliable protection.

Bag every clipping for municipal green waste the same day it is cut - never compost, never burn, never tip it over a wall or fence. Fence stock far enough from any boundary yew that nothing can reach across, and check hedges after storms for windfall branches inside a paddock.

The commonest way yew kills. Taxine does not degrade as cut foliage dries, and wilted yew becomes more palatable to stock rather than less, so hedge trimmings tipped over a fence or dumped in a lane are eaten readily. Horses are exceptionally sensitive - well under a pound of foliage can be fatal - and cattle, sheep, goats and alpacas are all at risk. Death is frequently sudden, with animals found dead and yew still in the mouth.

Any ingestion of needles, twigs, bark or seed by a person or an animal. Symptoms can include nausea, vomiting, dizziness, abdominal pain and a slow or irregular pulse - but with yew, collapse is often the first sign, so absence of symptoms means nothing.

Suspected ingestion is an EMERGENCY - call poison control or emergency services immediately and do not wait for symptoms. There is no specific antidote; treatment is urgent supportive care for heart-rhythm effects. Say that it was yew, and take a piece of the plant if you can.

Never eat or taste any part. Teach children that nothing from this plant goes in a mouth, red fruit included. Wear gloves to trim, keep clippings out of compost, fires and animal reach, and do not plant yew where livestock graze or small children play unsupervised.

Every part of a yew except the red flesh of the aril contains taxine alkaloids, which act directly on cardiac conduction. There is no antidote, and the margin is small - a handful of needles has killed adults. Toxicity is unchanged by drying, wilting or storage, so old clippings are as dangerous as fresh growth in any month of the year.

Branches brown from the inside of the plant outward, and there is no cure once a plant is affected - remove it, fix the drainage, and do not replace it with another susceptible plant in the same wet spot.

Wilting, yellowing and stunting that does not improve with watering, a thinning canopy of small pale leaves, and dieback from the shoot tips. Dig and the feeder roots are dark, soft or brittle rather than white and firm, and on many plants the tissue at the base of the stem is discolored under the bark. Worst in low spots, and wherever a downspout, driveway or compacted path drains into the bed.

Very hard to reverse once established. Improve the drainage immediately, cut watering back, and mulch with coarse material rather than fine, which stays sodden. Remove severely affected plants and correct the site before replanting - and do not put another susceptible plant back into the same wet spot. Phosphonate (phosphite) treatments can suppress it in a valuable specimen, but drainage and siting do far more.

Drainage is the whole defense. Plant on a mound, berm or raised bed in heavy soil, and never in a hollow that holds winter water. Redirect roof and hard-surface runoff away from the planting, water deeply but infrequently so the surface dries between waterings, do not pile mulch against stems, and do not overwater in cold weather when the plant is using little. Use resistant rootstocks or tolerant varieties where they exist for the crop, and never move soil from an infected area.

A soil-borne water mold (Phytophthora species) that rots feeder roots and, on many plants, the crown at the soil line whenever the ground stays saturated. Rotted roots cannot take up water, so the plant looks drought-stressed even in wet soil: the canopy thins, leaves go small and pale, growth stalls, and dieback works in from the tips over months or years. It is the commonest cause of death in plants that want moisture but cannot tolerate standing water, and it travels in surface water and on tools, boots and moved soil.

Red cups within reach of small children, fruit dropped onto paths, lawns and play surfaces, and any child reported to have eaten a red berry from a hedge.

Call poison control immediately for any suspected ingestion, even if only the red flesh is thought to have been eaten - you cannot tell whether a seed was chewed. Do not wait for symptoms.

Clear fallen fruit from play areas in autumn, and consider removing fruiting branches at child height. Teach the rule as covering the whole plant, red part included - a nuance about the flesh being harmless is not a rule a child can apply.

In autumn female yews carry soft, sweet, bright red open-ended cups at exactly toddler height. The red flesh itself contains no taxine, which is what makes the fruit dangerous - it tastes pleasant and invites more - while the hard seed sitting in the bottom of each cup is intensely poisonous if it is chewed. A seed swallowed whole and intact often passes through, but that is not something a parent can know or rely on.