Oh, Seil! That's awful from every possible point of view.

Jeri

Wow, that's terrible! People are so thoughtless. :(

I feel for you. I'd be horrified, frustrated and angry. I hope the garden pulls through.

Check with MI Dept. of Agriculture, there should be applicator certification requirements, licensing, & application standards, as well as complaint investigation. Your description of what happened there raises a lot of red flags & it sounds like whoever was involved in that spraying needs reporting & investigating.

Seil - I am a little confused - what did spraying the street have to do with the neighbor having a tree taken out? Was it a private contractor, or the City or County doing it?

Jackie

The chipper noise sounds as if it was a simultaneous, unrelated, fortunate noise to the applicator, Jackie. Had the noise not alerted Seil something was happening, she may not have known anything had happened out front until it was too late.

Ralph Moore used to tell of Cal Trans spraying Round Up along the freeway in front of the nursery. There was a young Oak which he had watched grow from a small sapling into a beautiful, medium sized tree. Of course, they sprayed it, too. He reported he ran across the frontage road, clipped off all of the lower, smaller branches to prevent the herbicide from absorbing into it and hosed it off thoroughly. It worked! That tree was still growing across the road, along the freeway, years later when the nursery was no longer there. Good luck! I hope you can put their backsides through the wringer for such stupidity. Kim

mmmm, this was common practice in our municipality until enough complaints encouraged the council to change to Kerb granules, avoiding the risk of chemical drift. I suggest a sharply worded letter to the relevant works department, with a few alternative suggestions for a more stable herbicide might be helpful - Roundup, now it is off patent, has become the cheap generic weedkiller of choice for cash-strapped councils but they do have other choices.
In the meantime, having got on the case at once and hosed down all affected areas, you should be OK - sympathies though - it happened to me years ago when my entire display of many, many pots was completely wiped out - it was early in my gardening life and almost did for me completely.

Thank you all for your sympathy and suggestions. I knew you would understand my outrage and needed to vent. I still haven't heard back from the pres. but will call again if he doesn't call me back soon.

To my knowledge this was not done by the city but by the subdivision. Which really galls me because they went around and painted little fish in front of all the storm drains with a warning not to dump hazardous materials because they drain to the lake. What on earth do they think Round Up is and where do they think that street spray is going to drain to! And there are expensive plantings along the fence across the road from me that we, the subdivision residents, paid for out of our annual dues. He was spraying those as well! I just don't understand this at all and I'm so angry. I've quit using chemicals myself because I'm very conscious about things going into the lake.

I know I washed them down very well but should I do anything else? It's rained a lot lately and they don't really need it but should I water them extra? How long does it take to see any adverse affects from this stuff? I know I can expect some distorted growth but are there other symptoms?

I just keep thinking that if I hadn't seen what this man was doing I know I would have thought RRD immediately when I saw distorted plant growth on them. I may have ripped out dozens of bushes for no reason not knowing they had been sprayed with weed killer. Some of my seedlings are planted in that bed and are irreplaceable. Others are fairly rare and hard to find as well. With people stealing blooms and the rabbits eating all the minis and now this I'm beginning to think this street bed is jinxed.

It my take a few days before you see effects of the spraying...
Hopefully all will be ok...

I have a similar one for you. I happened to be outside last week when the mow and blow guys hired by my landlord were around. I've been wondering for awhile why the trailng junipers on my slope side were dying -- thought it was some special juniper fungus. Have long since banned the mow and blow guys from my back yard, which is where the roses are. But there he was out there on the slope that is my side yard (and is supposed to be covered with junipers) spraying away -- he thought he was only getting the weeds that come up through the now-dead junipers. I got in his face a little and I don't think he'll do that again. But now I know it was not a juniper-specific fungus that was slowly cause them to die up the slope. The slope is about half dead now. Argh!

Anyone else wanna rant on mow and blow folk? Your turn.

This post was edited by kstrong on Wed, Aug 14, 13 at 18:39

Boy, Seil and KStrong, I can sure understand your anger and it's one more proof that "you can't teach common sense". What were they thinking? If this is a plant killer, it kills plants (and trees). I think some people see "weed killer" and think it's specific only to weeds, but guys - the chemicals can't think or make judgments. At best that happens with the broadleaf weedkillers for lawns, which must encourage this sort of idiocy in folks with common sense impairments, but even broadleaf weedkillers are things you want to protect yourself and other ornamental plants from when spraying.
Sympathies on the heartache and worry this must cause, and you at least are forearmed with strategies to counteract the mess and interpret the results without ripping out perfectly innocent rose bushes.

We share your pain!
Cynthia

Boy, Seil and KStrong, I can sure understand your anger and it's one more proof that "you can't teach common sense". What were they thinking? If this is a plant killer, it kills plants (and trees). I think some people see "weed killer" and think it's specific only to weeds, but guys - the chemicals can't think or make judgments. At best that happens with the broadleaf weedkillers for lawns, which must encourage this sort of idiocy in folks with common sense impairments, but even broadleaf weedkillers are things you want to protect yourself and other ornamental plants from when spraying.
Sympathies on the heartache and worry this must cause, and you at least are forearmed with strategies to counteract the mess and interpret the results without ripping out perfectly innocent rose bushes.

We share your pain!
Cynthia

Cynthia, you're presuming the applicator actually saw the product and mixed it after readint the label. I've worked for several "landscape companies" and they're all different. One, I couldn't wait to leave, told the applicators what to mix and how, with NO safety warnings at all. We discussed this and I had to report him to the State after alerting the employees who were endangered because HE wouldn't see to their safety. How could anyone justify having a crew stand there pulling yellow leaves off an Iceberg hedge while a coworker sprayed the same hedge around them with Orthonex? My Lord!

Far too often, the guy dragging the sprayer knows nothing more than what he's told and that is frequently very little. If he actually read the label and still sprayed everything, I'd investigate if he was literally told to spray everything. The average homeowner in an HOA doesn't pay attention to what's being applied. If landscape plants die, the Chairperson is told to instruct the landscape company to replace them. Been there, too. With Kathy's landlord, I'd put in a call to him and let him know WHY he is on the hook for replacement junipers. I'll bet he has no idea his "employee" is sacrificing his rent profit! Kim

Cal-Trans sprayed weed killer on the side of the highway north of us several years ago. They are not supposed to spray on windy days. A crew did not care about the ocean breeze and sprayed away with the wrong product as well.

Then governor Schwartzennegger actually detoured for a helicopter tour of the damages done to about 1/4 mile of freeway frontage avocado trees. The avocado trees are still sickly looking and the settlement for years of crop loss plus the cost to replace grown trees was massive.

Spraying can have some serious costs, maybe something the home owners association should refund.

I feel for you!

I've gardened for years, and have also used "roundup" in various applications.

This year, I took two paying jobs, planning gardens and landscaping. I was using the "4-month" version of Roundup and had similar wind conditions. I did get some drift of "RU" on a hosta, but thankfully, there was not much damage.... just a couple of 'air-conditioned' leaves.

It was a lesson learned.

I once grabbed the RU spray bottle thinking Deer-Off and went merrily down the lines spraying my roses. After several minutes, I began wondering why the Deer-Off didn't stink. I looked at the bottle, dropped it, grabbed the hose and washed and washed. Then I called Round-Up and asked how long and what else I could do. According to the Round-Up people, one has about 20 minutes in which to hose RU off. After that, cross your fingers.

Personally, I would demand damages from both the company and whoever hired them. It is absolutely unprofessional. Don't wait to hear back. Call your lawyer and let him/her handle it.

3 of my big DA roses in prime health were completely wrecked by Round Up spray or drift. My guess is they were aiming for weeds and/or a vine on the wall next door and my roses got a good exposure while I was unaware. They have put on sickly growth and haven't flowered properly for some time. Even the growth farther down is distorted. After a while, the newer leaves look ok but the plants don't bloom. This stuff hangs around a long time.

I know it's not the location because a newly installed 5 gallon Baronne Prevost looks in prime condition while the DAs suffer on. Watch your plants closely. I think you did the right thing. I wish I had caught the sprayer in action in my case.

I talked to the president and the VP of maintenance last night and neither one of them authorized any kind of spraying. They don't know who this guy was. I wish I had had the foresight to get his name but I was angry and not thinking straight. I do know he was driving a gold pick up because I noted that it was parked in a no parking area and facing the wrong direction on the street. The pres. is going to put a notice in the sub newsletter that no one is allowed to spray the communal grounds without permission. However, now I don't even know if this guy was a resident or not. I will be keeping an eye out for that truck though.

I keep going out and looking them over. I know it's silly because they wouldn't show anything yet but they're like my kids and I'm worried about them. Sigh...like I need more stress....

Hi Seil. I am so sorry to hear what had happened. I hope that you were able to wash away any roundup off your roses and that they suffered no harm. Over the course of this summer, I really enjoyed looking at your gorgeous photos of your beautiful roses. These photos really helped me and comforted me in my time of grief while my mother was in hospice. Everytime I felt overcome with grief, I would get on the public computer in the hospice and go to the roses forum and look at all the beautiful photos. Your roses photos are just incredible and the roses are just perfect. They remind me of God's handiwork in all of his creation and give me hope and peace to cope with the grief of my mother's passing. I sincerely hope that your roses will not suffer any damage from this unfortunate event.

Hi Kousa

Thanks for helping us put this in a bigger perspective, that while we care about the lives of our roses and justifiably spring to their defense, the lives of people around us take precedence. It's lovely when those things can support each other, like the comfort you found in the rose photos during visits with your mother in hospice. Sympathies to you on her passing and glad to have you joining us again on GW.

Cynthia

Several years after I moved here, I did most of my gardening in the backyard. That year I decided to tackle the semi messed up garden beds around the oak and sweet gum trees. I fixed up the one under oak tree first because it was in better condition. Put a mixture of annuals with a couple of perennials. Not even a month had gone by, when I came home from work to find one of those chemical lawn care sign in my yard. I was puzzled because I would never use such a company and then I talked to my landlord who hadn't called them either. It turn out the moron was on the wrong street. Some of the annuals were damage but I had got them for next to nothing. I did call the company and let them know that this was never to happen again. Now if only it had been that easy with my next door neighbor.

So sorry to hear about your Mom, Kousa. I've been through that too so I know what a strain it is. I'm glad my pictures were some comfort to you.

Thanks very much everyone. I feel for you too Seil and I know that it is not by accident that your roses are perfect and beautiful but by a lot of constant care, attention, and love that your roses give you such wonderful blooms.