Gardener's Giant Hogweed Warning

Wigan Today

Social media-famed 'Dave The Plantman' shares horticultural hints and tips to over half a million followers, warning people about the dangers of giant hogweed, what to look out for and what to do if you find it. Filmed in Appley Bridge near Wigan.

Transcript

00:00Hello, I'm Dave the Plant Man and I do wildflowers and gardening tips on social media.

00:06I've got half a million followers across Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube and I do a lot of

00:12country walks. Now this plant here is called Common Ogweed. Now it's not totally safe to touch

00:20but this isn't the really bad one. I want to show you next the Giant Ogweed. That is super dangerous.

00:25Right, this is the dreaded Giant Ogweed. Now you can see it's got a lot more bigger pointed leaf

00:34and it has these spots on the stem and the seed heads at the top. It's three, four times bigger

00:40than the Common Ogweed. Now this is the one, if you crash through this and got it on your skin,

00:46got the sap off this on your skin, the sap actually reacts with sunshine. It's a phototoxic sap so what

00:54you get is a big blister. Now if you get enough of it on you, I've heard of people streaming

00:59and finding little ones in the ground and getting covered, splattered with the sap

01:04in sunshine. I heard one about a little girl who rode through a biking through some little ones,

01:10some young ones, fell off, got covered in blisters. She had third degree burns. She was in hospital,

01:19I think it was two months, while they treated the burns and then after that she couldn't go on summer

01:25holidays in the sunshine for another two or three years. So this is a seriously bad weed.

01:32So if you see these anywhere, I've heard stories about people trying to, kids using them as pea

01:37shooters and burning their lips. Also if you ever see the, if you ever break down on the motorway,

01:44watch out for these quite often on the banking and central reservation on the motorway. And if you

01:50climb over the fence and again crush through all these with, with bird skin and then get it in the

01:55sunshine, it'll come up as blisters. Now if you ever did get the sap on your skin, what you do is cover

02:01it up, put a jacket on, make yourself safe, get it out to the sun. It doesn't burn unless it's mixed with

02:07sunshine. So cover it up with a, with a, with a sweater or something, get to some water and wash

02:14it off straight away and you should be all right. So that's all you have to do. Make sure you don't

02:19mix the sap of this with sunshine if you do get it on your, on your skin. But the safest thing is keep

02:26away from it. Don't even try and chop it down. Right, this is in the middle of a field so it's fairly

02:31safe. You'd have to be mental like me to come through here. But there's these going down the side

02:37of the canal bank, right next to the water. So again, that's where they're dangerous. If you do

02:42find them against the canal bank, contact the Canal and Rivers Trust. Try and get a pinpoint where

02:49they are on a map with your phone. Tell them exactly where it is and they will get a contractor to come

02:54out and deal with it and they will remove it. So if you find these growing anywhere, like next to a

03:00river, a public place or a towpath and you know it's going to be a danger in the future, please report it

03:07and let's get them in the fields out here where they're not going to do a lot of damage.

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