oleander flowers

are they poisoness to pets if eaten

Yes, very!

can kill pets and will make humans really, really sick.

Every portion of oleander is poisonus including the smoke resulting from burning it .

Please, oleander are not as poisonous as you think. Just go to Snopes.com and read some of their answers to some of the urban myths.
It is so very sad that people have this feeling about oleander. Did you know that almost everything in your garden is poisonous to a point. In Europe they are prized and breed. They have wonderful colors and shapes.
The US is about the only country that has this feeling. Just think how many stories are first hand?
Lantana is very toxic .
Here in Az I have never seen any sap from my cuttings when I take them. I work with them all the time taking leaves off the cuttings and with out gloves. I have never had any rashes all, I do wash my hands when I do come inside.
We have even meet an old timer here that does burn them. I would never say try that and we have a commercial sized wood chipper,I just to be safe don't chip any of the branches.
Why would a person eat oleander? It is said that is is very bitter and taste nasty. My friend that grows them on the East Coast tasted them just to see how bad they tasted he said the taste terrible but nothing happened to him for tasting the oleander.
Why would a child eat oleander?
Oleander are big business in Europe. One nursery in Louisiana can't grow them fast enough.He ships all over the world.
Mickey

Why do children eat laundry packets and die?
No Oleanders around my fur kids.

I sure don't recommend eating or smoking them. We've lived in this house 26 years. There were, and are, oleanders on my neighbor's side that encroach on our side. None of their dogs or mine, have ever shown any inclination to eat any part of them. I wouldn't give them oleander sticks to play with, but the blossoms fall everywhere and they don't appear interested. Now they DO have a decided taste for Passiflora 'Incense' flowers and passionvine is supposed to contain cyanide.

As others here have already suggested, the supposed dangers of Oleander are way overblown.

Here is the link to the wikipedia page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nerium

3 oleander related deaths in a 20 year period (1985-2005) if you read the causes of the death all were either ingesting it in concentrated form or had a complicating health issue.

I think they are beautiful and enjoy the encroachment that we get from the neighbor's wall of Oleander, but we did worry when we still had our dog because she was prone to eating random stuff on the ground - as most dogs are. However we had the same experience as judyb: our dog ignored every little bit of oleander on the ground, while happily going for other random stuff, must be something they can smell - or she tried once and was sick without us linking it to Oleander.

One problem with the encroachment is that they are cramping my cacti's lifestyle (mainly shading them more then they should). So once a year I have a day where I cut every overhanging branch off and get a lot of inadvertent contact. I have severe contact allergies to grasses and unfortunately Palo Verde (we have three trees), and some other plants, but I have never had a contact rash from Oleander, leaves, cuts branches, or flowers, but I did develop a little bit of an itch when a cut branch scraped me hard enough to draw blood, but even that went away quickly.

So to me it would seem that in a normal landscape environment they should be just fine, but the effects of many poisons are determined by body weight, so children or dogs could show effects when exposed to a dose that would not affect a full grown adult. So if you have young children or dogs some care should certainly be taken.

If I did not know better I would think our state flower was the oleander. They are everywhere.

I have about 10 different varieties of the double blooming oleanders and I have them all growing in very large pots. They are all over the neighborhood and community. I have not heard of any negative health problems. The newer varieties do not freeze like the older ones but they do soak up the water.

While I will agree completely that in most instances Oleander pose little dangers to people and pets, but not because they are not as toxic as reported in the literature... they are indeed a toxic plant and consider by most toxicologists one of the 10 most toxic plants on earth... but toxic and dangerous are not necessarily the same thing. They taste horrble and most people and pets do not eat enough to make them terribly ill because they are so bad tasting. I think their primary danger is to livestock, such as cattle, that tend to eat a lot of whatever falls in the ground (in t erms of leaf litter) without much concern if it's good or bad tasting. There may not be many recorded human deaths from oleander poisoning, but there are dozens of cattle deaths each year from this plant- probably more than from any other plant poisoning, at least in the US.

And the toxic dermatitis is a very individual thing.. I did not even know of this toxic potential until a friend of mine hacked down all of his and ended up in the hospital with a very severe and painful rash. I then researched it and discovered this potential dermatologica hazard. I have no sensitivity to this plant myself and have handled in frequently... but not everyone is so lucky.

As for American's fear of this plant, it sure doesn't show in California where thousands of miles of highway are lined with this species- after all it is rather attractive, very drought and wind tolerant, and pretty much bug proof (but not completely). But we also have hundreds (maybe a thousand overall) miles of roads lined with Caster Bean, too.

My area has quite a few horses. Some horses seem disinclined to eat oleander, but some will. They get so ill they die. Mine never seemed interested in it, but they always had other food available. I think most are safe unless they have enough hunger to overcome the bitterness. Some horses will just eat anything, wood, rocks, dirt...

I sure wish pigeons and roof rats would eat it.

Lol!

I ripped out my gorgeous Caster Bean when I got Jaz, no taking chances with my fur kids!

I have Castor Beans but my dogs have the invisible Fence collars so they are planted in areas they will not go near.

so maybe pigeons and roof rats would eat the castor beans? Would I need to sautee them in butter first?

I heard that pigoens and roof rats are delectable when sauteed in butter. :)

Eewwwww!!