234 days ago

Watch out for this pretty flower

The Team from Neighbourly.co.nz

Green thumbs are being asked to watch out for a beautiful but toxic flower that could be growing in their backyards.

What you need to know:
- Every part of the plant is poisonous, and can cause gastroenteritis, thirst, paralysis, blindness, and heart and kidney failure.
- This plant is hardy and normal pest control efforts are often not enough to eradicate.
- The cape tulip, growing up to 90cm high with one strap-like leaf, was introduced to Aotearoa in the 1940s, the Ministry for Primary Industries’ manager for pest management John Sanson said. “Cape tulips, like many of these invasive weeds, are really attractive ornamental species ...but they escape over people’s backyard fences and into pasture, as these things often do,”
- It was classified as a noxious plant in the late 1970s after they were discovered to cause harm to livestock and humans, even killing animals when too much as ingested.
- The salmon-pink flowers bloom for about two days a year between June and December, and have previously been an ornamental species for keen gardeners.

Sanson urged people who believed they had the weed growing on their property to leave it untouched and contact Biosecurity New New Zealand’s Exotic Pest and Disease on 0800 80 99 66.

Once a site was confirmed, manual removal or chemical treatment would start.

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A
13 hours ago

New here

Alpha from Panmure

Hello everyone! just joined today. Hope everyone is having a nice time with their families. Good weather today. :)

12 days ago

Poll: Would you rather: Christmas in summer forever or winter forever?

The Team from Neighbourly.co.nz

Just a bit of a fun poll to get you thinking.

If you had to live out your Christmas days, would you prefer it was a summer Christmas or a winter Christmas?

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Would you rather: Christmas in summer forever or winter forever?
  • 62.7% Summer
    62.7% Complete
  • 35.9% Winter
    35.9% Complete
  • 1.4% Other - I'll share below
    1.4% Complete
2008 votes