I am not going to tell anyone else what to grow or not to grow on their own property, but I worry about comparing oleander to stems and leaves of tomatoes. Oleander really may be more dangerous than most of the garden plants we think of as poisonous. There was a news story a while back about a boy who died after eating a hot dog that he had roasted over a campfire by sticking it on the end of a branch of oleander. Even if he knew oleander was toxic he probably did not recognize it as a dry stick.

The problem with this thinking... which to me used to be fine, till I noticed, that all is fine and dandy till something goes wrong....then people scream... For example, you may want to take any drug you want, then your cousin dies of an ephedra problem.... then all of a sudden your thinking is changed. Personally, I generally agree. I think that the stupids who mess with something they don't understand.... just weeds out their genes from the gene pool. But apparently, others don't see it this way. I see this in almost all aspects of American life... ANOTHER example... You all want a freemarket system... till you pay $3 a gallon for gas... then you scream. People seem to want what they want with no concern for the consequences... I just do it... and unlike Cacye, I LISTEN when someone says there is a danger... some don't... that's why they try to beat trains in train crossings.... ANOTHER way to weed certain genes from the gene pool.

Do Oleanders grow in my zone. I heard that they were poisonest to animals, is this true. My mother in law had them all around her yard in Nevada and her dogs either did not chew on them or they didn't get sick from them.

Ah Jim, the oleander rustling bug has struck has it? Oleander rustling is a favorite pasttime on the island. You wait until they are in bloom, then drive slowly down the streets until you see one, or smell one you like, then you jump out, snip a couple of branches and jump back in the car. They root so easily. Theres a great book the Oleander society puts out on them. We went around one year and took cuttings from the ones in the book, since we knew where they were and that way we knew WHAT they were. A lot of the pics are in Galveston, Kewpie Gaido (of Gaidos restaurant fame) was big in oleanders & her & her gardener-Clarence- used to drive all over the island rustling them. I'll have to pull out the book and see where they are native to, it's not Jamaica, I think it's the Asian continent. And yes, Galveston got them from Jamaica and the Caribbean after the 1900 storm as part of the replanting. Sorry to say we lost a lot of the old ones along with the trees. We made leis from these as kids. I wouldn't believe the guy who said his horses and cows got sick and died, it wasn't the oleander, they taste far too bitter. There has NEVER been a documented death from ACCIDENTAL ingestion of oleanders, even by a horse, they just taste too bad. There was a case a couple of weeks ago where some horses got sick, the oleanders were chopped up and mixed in with their feed. My dog has eaten so many brugs in her life, she chews on the sticks, my cuttings, never been sick. Another thing about toxic plants, it might be toxic in one area and non-toxic in another. A lot depends on the soil, water, etc. Anyone grow castor bean? One bean chewed up will kill you. And in India people are known to commit suicide by chewing the sees from thevetia peruviana-the yellow oleander. A gorgeous plant by the way. TallyHO!