I have 5 privet bushes, (arranged in a U fwiw) and someone sprayed Round-Up on the bed around them. Is this something that should bother me for horticultural reasons? That is, might he have damaged the bushes?
I thought Round Up was the stuff that killed everything!
The bed was well mulched by the same people a month or two ago, and any weeds would have been little and scattered, so there was no way to spray the weeds without spraying the mulch, and if they weren't perfect, they probably sprayed the stem/trunk of the bushes, which are about 6 feet high. I'm mostly worried about their spraying the stem/trunk.
This is the first time anyone but me has sprayed any weed killer.
A picture on the Round Up website shows someone spraying a weed just a foot from some flowers. but it also says " spray the weeds on the leaves, not the soil. The formula enters the plant's system via the leaves and travels through the plant's circulatory system to the roots. "
If I tell the company to stop spraying, I'm 99% sure they will. How often would good landscapers spray Round Up each year anyhow? Are they done until next June?
When was the bed sprayed? If it was not a windy day there's a good chance the bushed won't be harmed. I used RoundUp frequently but just on weeds or poison ivy. But whenever I've sprayed around bushes I use a cardboard 'collar' to protect them.
As long as it's not on the bush itself, it's fine. Getting it on the soil doesn't matter. That's assuming it's Roundup (glyphosate). But it's not hard to get drift where you don't want it. A decent size bush, you'd just see some dead leaves where it contacted. Get enough on and it will kill the whole thing.
_Might?_ Sure. _Did?_ Probably not. As the instructions say "spray the weeds on the leaves, not the soil. The formula enters the plant's system via the leaves and travels through the plant's circulatory system to the roots."
If there was some overspray it might cause a minor bit of damage but unless was a lot you'll likely not see any ill effects whatever.
Well, yes, but not _every_ thing--else't there wouldn't be Roundup-Ready soybeans and other crops. It's a specific plant enzyme used in the production of vital amino acids that is immobilized by glyphosate; another soil bacterium using a slightly different gene sequence isn't affected.
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Well, if they're your contractors, they'd best do what you request... :)
But, my observation is that some spray essentially every month just as a matter of course, whether need it or not. Again, if they're careful to not spray the leaves there should be no damage; glyphosate breaks down pretty quickly in the soil so unless they drown the plants there will be no pickup that way of significance.
Three days ago. I don't know if it was windy or not.
I'm sure he didn't do that. It's a new landscaping company, and their webpage makes them look very professional, but I'm still sure they didn't do that. `
He put up a warning sign, "Caution Pesticide Application, Keep Off, with an outline of an adult, child, and dog. Customer, Please remove after 48 hours" so it must be something strong.
He wrote Rond up, but of course he might have been using the word inaccurately, too broadly. I can't remember what diphthongs exist in Spanish or if there are any words with an 'ou' sound. I can't think of any so there probably aren't. He also crosses his 7's so that may narrow it down still further where he comes from.
I noticed one of them mow the lawn that day. They drive a mower whose blades are about 6' wide, they zoom by at at least 10mph, and it takes maybe 120 seconds to do all 600 sq. ft. But it's a new company for us and no one has every applied a weedkiller before, at least not one with a sign.
That's enough for me. Well, almost. If I were sure they were going to do it right and I would have bushes but not weeds, I'd be happy.
I've picked the weeds out many times, and I've sprayed less powerful weed killer 2 or 3 times, and of course the weeds come back. OTOH, there was no bed around the bushes when I bought the house, just grass and that was fine. One time when I wasn't looking some prior gardener made a bed around them, and that was fine too, but in the last two years, the gardener, in an effort to make the bed nice has been making it bigger by about a half each year**. That has the effect of making it look like my neighbor owns an inch less than he really does. Although all of this land is on the other side of a sidewalk, and he probably doesn't even know he owns the 70 square feet or so that he owns. I don't think he mows it. There's a third neighbor who owns about 1 square foot of this area, the mother of the volunteer mower, but I doubt if she knows it. (The area is slightly triangular.)
**On one side. On the other side the bed is bordered by an underground FIOS box with a plastic lid, so it doesn't get any bigger.
Ah but they're not mine. They're the HOA's contractor. The bushes only occupy about 80 square feet, but 300 to 600 square feet of my property, all of it outside my fence, the HOA president imagines belongs to the HOA. I've told the HOA president and her predecessor several times that they are mine.
Three or 4 years ago I sent a certified letter, RRR, to the management company and the HOA pres, a letter that was still in their files a couple months ago, explaining that the land was mine, but the old president was an incredible jerk and I don't expect the new president to have read everything in every file for 109 houses. In fact, maybe most of it is none of her business.
Frankly, I like it that they do this, so I don't have to, but a
30-year old neighbor mows the lawn a lot more often than the landscaper does. I've offered to pay him but he brushes me off. He also mows the lawn for two of his neighbors. These are small townhouse lawns, and the part of my land that he does is a lot less than that, only 220 square feet, but still it takes him time and it's very nice of him. But he doesn't trim the bushes, the landscaping company does, and I'm happy that I don't have to, except the HOA thinks they own the land.
Half of the land they might think is theirs is on the pedestrian easement between my end-of-group townhouse and the one in the next building, which is at right angles to my building. The owner of that house seems to think that the 10' pedestrian easement behind his fence belongs to the HOA, when in reality it belongs to him. At a HOA meeting I pointed out the difference between an easement and HOA property, but I don't think he was interested.
So when the landscaping company mowed those 600 sq. ft last summer, I wrote to the president to tell her that I didn't mind them mowing it, but they might save a little money if they stopped. Later I sent her a portion of the plat covering my lot and 2 lots on either side, and another version of the same thing but with my property line in red, one n'bor's in green and the other in blue. (I didn't color them in the first version because the color obscured some detail.) But she wrote back that she didn't think I owned the land!
I'll wait a week before I call them!
My n'hood has an HOA that hires a landscaper to mow the lawn, plant flowers, etc. on the small percentage of the land that is owned in common. We frequently change contractors. One went on to other work, one died, one had a deal with the previous HOA president that he would mow her lawn and shovel snow off of her walk in return for a long term contract (We couldn't prove this because they are all willing to mow or shovel individual homes for extra money, and I see nothing wrong with that, except in this case.) and other reasons.
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