Garden Emergency

[Wellsie]

Our 11 year old was trying to help, and accidentally sprayed many of our plants with ivy killer (she thought it was bug spray).

Is there any way to save these plants?

PLEASE HELP! Thanks!

[Vox Humana]

The best thing would have been to immediately hose them down.

[paghat]

Looks there's a god after all, punishing you for putting toxic chemicals in the garden in the first place, let alone where children also live & play.

You can hose down everything she sprayed & hope to get the deadly toxins washed off the leaves. But you should expect a great deal of death & damage, & be grateful for anything heaven spares. Then in the future ALWAYS BE ORGANIC, & remember this pressing undeniable rule: Every- time you make another excuse to dump toxins into even our own immediate environment, you increasingly deserve the slow wasting cancerous miserable permature death you've assigned to yourself, & further punishments after death because the kids, animals, & natural world you simultaneously killed didn't make that choice, you did.

If you'd Think Organic, you wouldn't have that deadly shit around for kids to mistake for other deadly shit. Remember, this wasn't your daughtrer's fault, but you were an evil turd to have multiple kinds of deadly toxins on hand in the first place.

-paghat the ratgirl

[Travis]

Why the hell does an 11 year old have access to garden chemicals?

[Mon Chi Chi]

[eclectic]

(snip)

Those plants are replaceable. I am horrified that your daughter might have been subjected to those toxins herself! White knuckle time! Hope all works out well.

[SueNYC]

The hell with your plants..what is the matter with you?? You are one incredibly irresponsible parent to leave such poisons in reach of your kids! I'd be more worried about whether my kid got any exposure than the damn plants! Your priorities are seriously screwed up!

[Cereus-validus]

Oh yeah, those auxins can be a real problem with toddlers.

Your over protectiveness can never be enough.

You don't want her to become another Martha Stewart.

Is she out of diapers yet?

You may need to put her in a big plastic bubble!!!

[Cereus-validus]

Oh yeah,

Weed killers may cause your daughter's foliage to wilt.

Those auxins can wreck havoc on toddlers.

When do you think it will be safe to let her walk on her own?

You can never be too overprotective of your kids lest they take on any responsibilities of their own.

[eclectic]

Is this really about over protectiveness and children at risk of becoming like Martha Stewart? Martha would have had one of her people read the label. :-)

I think the issue is that the child had access to damaging materials, which were used with complete ignorance without the parents' knowledge. At minimum they should teach their children to read the labels so they can be better informed in the future. I wouldn't think that "ivy killer" was safe on your skin, to get in your eyes, or for you to inhale. I'll leave it at that.

Regards.

[Michelle]

[chaz]

what an idiot

[paghat]

Oh stop eating your boogers li'l chazbo.

[Cereus-validus]

I'm being sarcastic, you dim boob.

Weed killers are not toxic to humans.

An 11 year old is not an infant nor should one be pampered like it's some retarded pet, just because the parents are over reacting like lunatics. One day the kid may wise up and put a heaping helping of valium in their idiot yuppy parent's seven and seven!!!

[SueNYC]

An 11 year old is a CHILD. And no responsible parent or gardener would leave weed killers and other poisons in reach of kids. I mean c'mon, the kid didn't even know what the hell they were spraying! The kid thought it was insecticide, which is just as bad and something kids should not have access to. I stand by what I said..the fact that the original poster lets his kids have access to chemicals and poisons, and was freaking out about some stupid plants instead of the fact his kid could have poisoned herself, shows he is ignorant, irresponsible, and has seriously messed up priorities. So what if a plant dies? You can replace it. But if your child dies......

SueNY

[Travis]

Maybe yours can but this kid obviously can't.

[Cereus-validus]

Okay then, put the kids in hermetically sealed plastic bubbles and hide them away from the cruel world full of evil nasty things. Is that wat you want?

Are you ever aware of when you cross the line from being protective to being an overly obsessive nut?

If you had any sense at all, you would have checked the warning labels before letting kids have easy access to the chemicals.

And if you knew anything at all about plants, you would have known that plant auxins (weed killers) are not toxic in any way to animals or children.

[Vox Humana]

That works for me. People in my neighborhood let the kids run wild as soon as they can open the front door.

[paghat]

Herbicides are highly toxic to humans, for which reason many are banned for use around edible produce, all have restrictions & don't even claim to be safe unless used within well defined parameters.

Even the allegedly harmless-if-used-correctly herbicides break down in the environment into components that are frequently carcinogenic, or combine with molecules in the environment to increase toxicity. They have been used successfully in suicides; they have accidcentally blinded people temporarily & permanently; their break-down & combined components are known cancer agents, so even if the side-effect takes 20 or 30 years to show itself in the form of carcinomas, that's pretty bad.

If low exposures to some of herbicides really were nearly harmless in brief & miniscule exposures, this cannot be extended to imply safety to exposure of the same chemicals periodically & in concert with a multitude of other garden chemicals such as dumbass ignorant non-organic planet-poisoning buy-consume-die cretins are addicted to. Herbicides, fungicides, pesticides, chemical fertilizers, & lawnmower pollutants, have unpredictable & accumulative side-effects -- at some point the soup of pollutants is no longer miniscule -- & what's intentionally used to pollute the garden is only one part of a larger chemical mix that keeps cancer, asthma, & other illnesses on the rise in incidence, & afflicts the larger environment with additional dangerous effects on watersheds & as air pollution eventually do impact human health.

So no one with a brain bigger than a pea believes these chemicals are harmless, whether or not they're unconcerned enough or just stupid enough to use them anyway, whether or not they leave them sitting around for the children to misuse.

Even IF a pre-teen knew what he or she was messing with (which this one didn't), even IF the kid had been instructed in safety considerations (such as her parents in no way followed, so she had bad examples to learn from), what really are the chances of kids adhering to rules? If kids were that responsible none of 'em would be pregnant by the seventh grade, & they'd be issued drivers liscenses at age ten, or sooner if their feet could reach the pedals. Kids may or may not be responsible when they are much more mature in years & have sufficient experience & knowledge to no longer believe in their own immortality. But any parent who would leave unmarked containers of random containers sitting around, who would lead any child to believe it was fine for them to handle toxic chemicals unsupervised, well, those parents should be arrested & charged with child endangerment.

-paghat the ratgirl

[Cereus-validus]

Pleeeeeze. Serenity now!!!

So how do you, your hubbie and five kids manage to survive living in this terrible terrible world we live in?