Castor beans are not something anyone should eat as they contain ricin which is highly poisonous.

Castor oil also comes from this plant and can be used medicinally as long as it is not ingested in large quantities.

Although the castor bean plant has to be treated with care, its soft, spiny pods (it’s perfectly safe to handle them) are a beautiful red once they ripen and the leaves also have a lovely shape and an interesting purplish colour. This plant also grows to about 2 metres (approx. 7 feet) so it would make a good privacy hedge.

Although it’s quite beautiful, I wouldn’t want to clean up after it once the pods start falling. It’s a prolific plant and there might be a lot of them!

Happy Tuesday.