A special thanks to Julie from the Human Flower Project who pointed out this tasty little morsel floating around cyberspace. It’s a list of Britian’s top 10 injuries that occurred in the garden last year.
Here they are;
1. Lawn mowers (6500 accidents each year)
2. Flower pots (5300)
3. Secateurs and pruners (4400)
4. Spades (3600)
5. Electric hedge trimmers (3100)
6. Plant tubs and troughs (2800)
7. Shears (2100)
8. Garden forks (2000)
9. Hoses and sprinklers (1900)
10. Garden canes and sticks (1800).
While I certainly can understand the mowers, secateurs, hedge trimmers and shears I’m a little lost for how those flower pots and plant tubs hurt so many people. Perhaps British gardeners are just a little more aggressive than others around the globe. Maybe the rest of us aren’t gardening hard enough?
So, how does one injure themselves with a flower pot?
The mind escalates into some brain-bending gymnastics when you try to contemplate some different scenarios where a flower pot could actually cause an injury.
The first one that springs to mind is where couples garden together and continue their domestic spats outside the confines of the family home. Many an argument has been overhead from the neighbour’s yard but it finishes quickly when a terracotta pot smashes to the ground. Was it thrown? Did it miss? Is someone bleeding profusely?
No ambulance turns up so we just have to assume that it was a ‘clumsy’ drop. Or has it been another unreported statistic?
Another scenario may focus on where these ‘weapons of mass destruction’ are stored. At foot level the worst injury you could do was to stub your toe on the impeding object. Lift them above head level though and suddenly the risk becomes enormous. Gravity is no respecter of persons.
The final scenario can be traced back to ‘competitor revenge’. Oui? The National Plant Tubs and Troughs Association has been struggling in their marketing efforts against Flower Pots – as seen in this cleverly designed advertising campaign. Don’t, for one minute, think that this is just a children’s show for it’s agenda is clearly to propagate the minds of an impressionable audience.
My guess is that they’ve actually hired gardening ‘hit-men’ to perpetrate gardens. Therefore, the statistics become inflated and cause gardeners to have a rethink about safety in their yards. One day those children will grow up to become gardeners. The’ll see that Flower Pots are the #2 killer in our supposedly safe garden environments and opt for plant tubs instead. It’s obvious how far this conspiracy reaches as the NPT&T; mastermind this destruction of innocent minds.
You can almost hear conversations happening in backyards all over the world –
“Yes, we decided to buy a plant tub instead of a flower pot. Did you know that flower pots are the second most dangerous item in the garden?”
“I know. Barry from next-door had to undergo surgery to remove some flower pot shrapnel embedded in his spleen.”
Sure, this is just my opinion but it makes sense doesn’t it?