is box a safe hedge to have with children and dogs?

[sherpa]

Hi there, I was going to do a box (boxus) hedge around my small herb garden but I have read it is very poisonous to horses, goats.... is it safe to have in a garden with children, a cat and a dog?? Or is it just if it is consumed in copious amounts?

thank you

[TonyF]

We have box in out garden and the cats steered well clear of it. Box can stink so the chances of anybody eating any of it, let alone copious amounts, would be odd. And the branches tend to be very hard to impossible to chew through unless they're very small/young shoots.

I've never heard of anybody being affected by being poisoned by box, yew for sure and one or two other things but the box should be safe.

[VirginVegGrower]

Hi there, I was going to do a box (boxus) hedge around my small herb garden but I have read it is very poisonous to horses, goats.... is it safe to have in a garden with children, a cat and a dog?? Or is it just if it is consumed in copious amounts?

thank you

Absolutely we have dogs and children with no issues and they are always in the knot garden. Next door's cats parade in there too when dogs aren't.

[Alison]

Ask Monty Don - he's got loads of the stuff