Just because one doof uses Round Up in his rose garden doesn't mean that the generalization should be extrapolated to everyone. I started to watch that link, but it apparently goes on for 10 minutes; that's about 9 mintues and 50 seconds too much of some random guy I don't know who decided to publicly demonstrate his laziness.

There will always be people who try to take the easy way out of hard work. Look at that rose bed--I'd be embarassed to have weeds that thick. What does this guy do, garden once every blue moon?

I did watch a good amount of the video. At some point he lifts up the branches of a rose, sprays underneath and drops them back down. Seems, uh.. unwise?

The guy in the video is not so random: http://www.growquest.com/

When I was first looking for a citrus tree I had seen their website...yikes

"For farmers, the use of rubber gloves when mixing
and loading pesticides or when repairing
equipment was associated with measurably
reduced urinary concentrations."

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1241861/pdf/ehp0112-000321 .pdf

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I added a Baldo Villegas web page to my links on what herbicide damage of roses looks like.

"Many gardeners use Round Up herbicide around the rose beds, too close to the roses. This is what happens to the roses. In some of these cases the application occurred during the winter months when there is no foliage but as the roses leaf out, the distinctive damaged foliage shows up."
AND
"This is a recent example of a summer application of a combination of pesticides at a local public garden. Many of the roses in the rose beds were severely affected. The damage lasted for several months."

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My modified web page:

http://home.roadrunner.com/~kuska/rose_rosette_disease_virus.htm

http://buggyrose.tripod.com/iabioticdisorders.htm

"How can anyone garden without using Round-up for the weeds," more than one "gardener" cooed and raved.

I was about having a heart attack! Wondered if it was me being an old-fashioned fuddy-duddy, or if there was something wrong with their gardening principles. I finally decided it was the latter problem.

: )

Kate

Why was this question posted anyways?

Sometimes you need RU. I had to spray around some roses to get rid of invasive vinica and trumpet vine. You can't dig that stuff up. I was very careful and the roses haven't show any sign of RU damage. The trumpet vine is gone (for now), the vinica needs another shot.

I did sympathize with that guy. Bermuda and spurge are very difficult to get rid of. I have bermuda growing underneath a 2 ft wide sidewalk into a front rose bed. I also have mondo grass and other companion plants in this bed, so I can't use RU. It've tried digging it up 3-4 times. On the advice of Connie (Hartwood Roses) I used grass be gone. It did a great job and did not harm the roses or other plants. I haven't seen any bermuda this year. The spurge will probably show up later this year.

I guess the stores here also sell trumpet vine, and that becomes a complete mess if untended. My neighbors have some that has scaled their older pines (30-40 feet upward easily) and occasionally tries to break through the fabric of my lot line beds and invade here. They also put in bamboo at some point, and that is a living wall, never to be removed, although fortunately far from my property line.

On regular weeds, that is what my shovel and hoe are for.

I have used RoundUp in very safe areas and found that other brands or types of killers work far better.

Around roses when I do use one, I put a few drops on weeds that are extremely annoying. I do NOT simply spray, ever, around my roses, or Iris, or Peonies.
If a weed spread by rhizomes, dig down and paint the roots and rhizomes with systemic killer.

Deanna

Scary - reading The Garden Watchdog about this guy and GrowQuest - Unbelievable!

My local rose society uses huge amounts of pre-emergent herbicides in the rose garden but not Roundup or any other post emergents.

He is right about a couple things, if you get roundup on the rose just cut it off right away; and if a weed is tall and full grown like the grasses he shows, just pull them out don't bother spraying them. And the dye is a good idea, we do that at work so we can see where we've hit and where we've missed.

But otherwise yikes! it's all over his hands - another good reason to use dye, you can be pretty surprised at where your herbicide shows up. Always always ALWAYS wear gloves with any kind of pesticide. and what a noisy neighborhood. I'd go nuts.