Don't walk barefoot in the garden (I always do) unless you are willing to stand a few splinters in your feet. The only injuries I get to my hands are from small pollenators who confuse me with a flower.

Oh...falling down. I tripped over a hose once and fell so hard on my hands! I know it effect my shoulders and neck in a negative way. Yeah, and I fall on my "backside" too. Equally glad there isn't anyone around.

I thought I was the only one!

Laura? Anyone kissed your boo-boos?
Marcia,you can go ahead and pull my ears when you see me but I was laughing at your story about falling LOL
I am terrible with my sence of humor.
Felix

That's okay, Felix...I laugh at myself, once I quit crying! I'm a clumsy oaf in my old age! But heck...it hasn't killed me yet, so it's all good!

Marcia

I finally learned the right way to seperate and pot the pups on my bromeliads. I worked all morning. Problem was I was wearing short sleeves and ended up looking like a "cutter" (suicide by plant). It was so bad that night, I was out with a flashlight looking for my aloe plant.I do have to say the swelling was gone by morning. Yea aloe! Nature giveth and nature taketh away.

Oh and I have fallen down, snipped my finger and hurt my back moving bags of dirt, mulch, rocks, etc.

Don't even talk to me about sunburn!

Ah-ha! One thing I don't ever get...sunburn! I wear Total Eclipse Sunblock (SPF 1,000) even to dart out and get the mail. When they've cut bits and pieces off of you enough times, you take sun protection VERY seriously! And I make Mark do all the bromeliad work...they are too wicked for me! Scrapes and slashes and cuts, OH MY!

Marcia

I had the brilliant idea of making things to keep the hose from running over the veggies last year by putting beer bottles over stakes in the ground to make ingenious little hose keepers. Even told the boyfriend for a couple weeks that he had to buy only green-bottled beer, figuring brown bottles would blend into the mulch and I'd trip over them. I trip a lot.

Well, a couple weeks ago, one ingenious little hose keeper had broken somehow, the veggie garden had gone completely to weeds somehow (how did that happen?) and I was barefoot out there trying to get the veggie garden ready for this year.

Ow!

Not a bad cut at all, really just a scrape down the bottom of my foot. The real scare was the thought of just how bad that could have been, like ER-trip bad. The stake sticking up. The glass. I was lucky in my stupidity. And the beer bottles and stakes came out right after the neosporin went on.

Hey! This could be a maintenance mistakes post too, at least in my silly case.

Susannah

My issues always come with the dreaded Bouganvilla. It always seems I'm participating in a rugby match with it and end up being a pin cushion for those thorns. As a favor for my wife's best girlfriend (she better not have any boyfriends!) I removed a Florida Holly that had grown up in her Bouganvillas (big one - 15 feet or so). When I finished she almost fainted seeing this poor skinny white man dripping blood from 30-60 puncture wounds on his arms and legs. Combined with the sweat - I must have looked like a character in a lousy B-rated movie!
My last "assault" was in my garden and went so deep it infected a bone in my thumb! In the picture below I let it get almost 20 feet before I trim it - OUCH!

Mine are almost always mystery wounds. I will come in with blood running down the back of my arm or leg and somebody will ask how I did it. I never seem to remember. Although I did get bit by Mr. Louis Phillipe the other day and there was no doubting what happened. Youch! Also one time I fell against Cactus Dave (NOID) and had spines backing out of my fingers for months. With an office job it is the most likely I am to ever have an injury.

Coconuts. I have 3 producing coconut palms. I watched UTube videos and read several articles on the internet before my first attempt to enjoy the harvest. Used a machette. I probably should have gone to the E/R for stitches, but elected to stay home and use butterfly bandages. Truly wondered if I was going to lose that fingertip.

I have a beautiful dendrobium orchid grown in that shell purchased as a pup for $3 in the nicelly split coconut from the first attempt, and I didn't get infected, still have a nice finger, so I count that as a success not to be repeated.

2nd attempt, after re-researching how to harvest a coconut shell, came up with a kinder, gentler method. Only ended up with a torn muscle in my back. I'm trying to remember if the chopped finger hurt worse than the torn back muscle.

Walking wounded? That's ME!

I sometimes have a problem with depth perception, or lack thereof, which is especially troublesome when I try to pull weeds next to my Agave Americana Marginata. Nothing like bending over to pull a dandelion and ending up with the sharp pointed end of an agave stuck in your scalp, shoulder, etc. Yikes!

The "Heart Hoe" advertised in Florida Gardening Magazine has been very helpful in reducing skin loss when separating broms. It's probably my favorite, most used garden implement (other than the trusty bypass pruner).

My problem is the same as gardencpa - I usually don't know I am getting injured, then I come inside covered in cuts and bites!

I was cutting down my gingers 2 days ago and that night found 5 fire ant bites on my leg - all the way up to my thigh!! I didn't even feel them biting me!

The dreaded Reclinata is NOT a friend of mine!!!

Gets me everytime I trim it up...LOL

Although...I'm still not convinced that wasn't a baby snake bite...hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm........

No hair on the foot nice.... :) Oh, nice picture of the cut. lol

I agree with Tampart, the dreaded Bougainvillea. Last weekend I helped my neighbor trim down her giant Bougainvillea which was hanging over my property. I were shorts (not thinking of my previous encounters with this dreaded plant) and my legs were covered (and I mean scratches) in scratches. The Bouganvillea is my enemy.

I've got so many little nick and cut scars on my legs. I need to get out in the sun so I can tan and cover them up. I'm always getting stuck or scratched by something. I used to always wear long pants when gardening, and I probably should start again, considering my track record.

But my feet don't look as bad as my neighbor's, who stepped in a fireant mound the other day, and didn't know the ammonia or clorox tricks to keep them from festering.

Maybe I should change my name to naivemel. What are the clorox and ammonia tricks and are they just for fireants?

My screen name should be "gardenklutz". When I got my first pair of Felco pruners I nipped the tip of my finger right off!! What me wear gloves??? I thought I was soso gardener cool with my fancypants pruners - ha. My other serious garden injury is to my left Achilles tendon. I hate to kneel on both knees to weed (can't get up and move fast enough). I kneel on my left knee only. Unbeknownst to me I severely stretched the tendon rocking back and forth to reach and pull. Now I have a huge lump on the back of my tendon. It's always sore and it's ugly.

Lellie, that wound does look like a snakebite!

great thread!

Most of my garden injuries have been sustained while working anywhere near my Acacia farnesiana...
got some 2" spikes on that thing that have left some serious puncture wounds. But I love that tree so much, I forgive it.

And I also sympathize with gardencpa and perrisquirrel... I often come inside with blood running down my leg or arm, and I have NO idea how it happened. Too busy off in plant-world I suppose :)

OK 3 weeks ago I pulled along my garden wonder, the Garden Scoot Dennis got me last year for Christmas after my first hip surgery.
{{gwi:944299}}From Christmas 2007

He oiled it and put a rope on the front shift so I can pull and move it easily...TOO EASY!! I yanked it into the back of my calf 3 weeks ago and grooved out a nice chunk of meat. Well, it has FINALLY been healing nicely and then the last 2 days it has been sore again. Dang thing had to be doused with Peroxide again tonight. Guess what, 2 days after 1st incident, I did ALMOST the same on the other leg...then I went and cut off a hunk of a noodle from the pool to wrap around the metal end...SIGH, Klutzo here for sure, don't even ask me about skinning my nose and ripping scratches onto my new eyeglasses while planting tomatoes!! I do love my Scoot, use it every day in the garden and Dennis uses it in the garage on his projects when he needs to sit low and get under things....Niiice! Man it sure looks clean in the picture above, hasn't looked that good since last Christmas!!

What an interesting thread . Thanks to lauraL for starting this .
Combine all the stories so far and you have me - total clutz .
Since I run a working ranch , I have even more lethal tools and machinery available to injure myself or plants .
Usually , I hear , " How did that giant bruise get there ?
Then I twist and turn to see some hideous multi-colored blotch on my skin that magically appeared from space . I rarely have a clue how any injury arrives on my body unless it involves the removal of a body party or many stitches .
Who knew gardening was so risky ?

Oh, the not so visible pulled back muscles! I always get to cut up the huge palm fronds/branches as the two stately Royal Palms out back shed them. Parts of them are so thick and woody that I can hardly work the large nippers through them! Tired arms, then drag them round front and stuff into the can for our once-weekly yard waste pickup. I've seen others lay the whole thing out at the curb, but never have had any luck myself, in getting the trash men to collect mine. Wahhhhhh

girlsaylor, who hopes everybody will exercise care handling those long-handled and electricified boo-boo makers!