Beware the many hazards that lurk in your flowerbeds

I always raise my eyebrows when people associate gardening with relaxation and pleasure.

Yes, it is lovely to have a garden and yes they are great places in which to sit and relax with a glass of wine. But they also have to be maintained and, far from being a place to boost your wellbeing gardens can be a serious threat to your health.

Around 87,000 people are injured every year while gardening, estimates from the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA) state. That probably won’t come as a surprise to most people, with hazardous equipment such as lawnmowers and electric hedge trimmers being in regular use. But, get this – seemingly innocuous pieces of gardening kit can also pose a problem.

Areas which suffered from hosepipe bans this summer have seen a sharp rise in strains and other back injuries caused by lifting heavy watering cans. It’s not only the elderly, even young, fit people are suffering. One osteopath practice in Berkshire reported ‘a huge increase in patients with back, neck, shoulder and elbow pain that they attribute to watering cans.’ Another practice, in Stowmarketin Suffolk, said patients were coming in with musculoskeletal problems from lugging watering cans to their plants.

Our vegetable patch is at the bottom of the garden and I admit to being relieved that we didn’t have a ban, and using a hosepipe throughout the heatwave. During the Yorkshire hosepipe ban last year I lugged watering cans up and down, hundreds of times. At the time I didn’t associate it with my sudden-onset lower back pain that lasted at least a month, but there was no other reason for it.

I haven’t avoided gardening ailments this summer, however. Thirty minutes extracting some dead wood from within our hedge left my arms covered in an itchy, bright red rash. An hour cutting the hedge with shears – the electric cutter terrifies me – left me with upper arm pain that’s still lingering. Cleaning out the green bin after collection, I lost my balance, fell over and bruised myself.

Take care when using gardening equipment. Picture: Pixabay

My husband has had his fair share of gardening accidents. Wearing sandals while tying up some runner beans, he stubbed his toe on the side of a raised bed, breaking it. It was the night before we were due to go on holiday. He refused to go to A&E and instead strapped it up. It healed awkwardly – it needs re-breaking and setting to fix it, but he refuses – and has since had to buy a larger shoe size.

He now wears clogs when digging, and sturdy boots when going up ladders.

That’s a trivial accident compared to some. What we don’t consider is that many gardening activities involve – proper ones, bought in the Netherlands – the use of equipment that, were it used in an industrial setting, would require special clothing, footwear, eyewear and, sometimes, hard hats.

Yet we – I’m pointing the finger at my husband here – skip up stepladders to saw branches off trees wearing flip flops. We dig, fork and hoe wearing sandals and, commonly, wellies, which, if you stick a fork into your foot, certainly aren’t up to the job.

My neighbour couldn’t wear shoes for a month this summer after dropping a pair of secateurs on her foot. The blades pierced her skin between the straps of her sandal. Secateurs, pruners and shears are, in fact, the third most dangerous gardening tool, with 4,400 injuries every year in the UK.

Lawnmowers are top, accounting for 6,500, according to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents per annum in the UK, topping injury lists.

Another seemingly harmless item – flowerpots – comes next, with 5,300, due to heavy lifting strains, cuts, and dangerous trips or falls.

Garden canes can be lethal if you bend down and poke your eye, and a minor scratch form a rose could turn nasty.

Of course, it has been proven that gardening is great for your mental health, and keeps you fit, so don’t let me put you off. But if you have a garden, wear protective gear and take care.