I don't spray anything on my 400 roses and it gets quite humid in my area also.

I would just keep the kids inside when you are spraying until it dries, for about an hour. I don't wear a respirator. I do wear gloves and eye protection. I also use an extended wand, so I don't get close to the spray.

But if you are really concerned, the kids are more important than the roses.

Shorts and a t-shirt for fungicide. I also use an extended wand which helps. I do take hose showers every 10 minutes to wash exposed skin.

I used the works when I sprayed.

This is such a touchy subject on the forums, that I suggest you call the companies that make what you intend to use. I did that numerous times. Talk to their chemists, then make your own decision.

Frankly, if you need to wear rubber gloves and boots, a respirator and goggles when you are spraying the stuff or handling it, then do you really want your kids to play in the yard when it is dry?

I have not sprayed for years, and have fewer problems with my roses than when I did spray. I have 20 large tomato plants, so once they begin to ripen, I can eat them right off the vine. Your kids might want their own garden too, right?

One more thing - newer products are not necessarily safer. They simply have not been used enough for the companies to gather information about them.

Sammy

T-shirt and shorts and I use an extended wand hose sprayer. I spray with Bayer Advanced fungicide but not insecticides. I keep the cats indoors until the spray dries.

There is information available on the Web about the chemical properties for each product you use and the hazard warnings, called a MSDS (Material Safety Data Sheet) A MSDS is a fact sheet developed by manufacturers describing the chemical properties of a product. MSDSs include brand-specific information such as physical data (solid, liquid, color, melting point, flash point, etc.), health effects, first aid, reactivity, storage, handling, disposal, personal protection and spill/leak procedures. As required by the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA), the target audience for information in a MSDS is the occupation worker who may be exposed to chemicals at work. However, much of the information is also relevant to consumers.

I've found MSDSs be a valuable tool when deciding what chemicals to use in my home.
-terry

You might want to spend some energy researching what kinds of roses DO NOT need spraying with fungicides in your area. Every day, new research comes out about which roses can be healthy without spraying, and new roses are developed so that you do not need to make the choice between spraying poison all over your yard, vegetables, wildlife, children & pets and having roses that are covered with disease.

Unfortunately, during most of the 20th century rose hybridizers focused only on the blooms, and so most of the roses, especially HTs, developed then are simply not healthy. However, this has changed. I would encourage you to make local inquiries with rose societies, and do research on line - then you can plant roses that you can live with!

Jackie

A tyvek disposable suit, cartridge respirator with face mask, hood, gloves.

I don't spray very often, maybe once every couple of years, but full protection from chemicals is wise.

A few years ago at a District Rose Society meeting, I attended a program presented by a Purdue University professor who said the modern pesticides made for home and garden use are safe to use without any special clothing or respirator.
After repeated questions regarding the label warnings and MSDS sheets he seemed to back down somewhat regarding the regular use of rose pesticides. He did state that it was always wise to change your clothes after each application. wash them separately from other clothes, and take a shower.

Spray with the wind behind your back so any drift gets blown away, not towards you.
A coarser spray, rather than a mist, will prevent much drift, but it will use more product.
When I sprayed I used a four foot wand. This pretty well kept any spray away from me and allowed me to get into areas where I wouldn't come into contact with the sprayed surfaces.
Spray early in the day so the spray will dry quickly. Most sprayed surfaces, once dry, are relatively safe from casual contact.
Children usually avoid playing in rose beds because of the thorns. Animals, though, don't seem to be bothered by them as much.
Lawn service sprays warn to keep pets off newly sprayed surfaces for 24 hours.

Much of my family went to Purdue, and they are supposed to be top of the line when it comes to agriculture.

Did anyone ask about the relationship between Parkinson's disease and pesticides?

I grew up around Indianapolis, and cannot help but wonder if this person was speaking with accuracy.

I don't read the MSDS unless I am required to do so. We have those in my school. They are very technical. The chemists that represent the companies will speak in plain English. They have told me to wear everything I mentioned earlier.

Sammy

Eh, I work in a lab. There's an MSDS for everything. Anyway, I wear gloves, try not get any of the concentrate anywhere and I don't spray on windy days. I'm only spraying fungicide and about every two or three weeks. The roses aren't next to my fruit or veggies. I've even given up on keeping the dogs out of the garden when I spray.

Sammy,
We all wondered too! There was quite a lively discussion at the end of his program.
I'm probably not as careful as I should be but I do wear rubber gloves during the few times a year I may handle a pesticide.

I should add that my post was regarding fungicides. I don't really use insecticides.

I think there is a chemist who posts here who says most fungicides are much less toxic than insecticides. I wear a long sleeve shirt, a hat, gloves, long pants, and either a bandana over my nose or a respirator. I used to wear nothing over my nose. If I spray a miticide I also wear goggles and stick my head through a hole in a trash bag and wear that over my shirt. I don't spray insecticides but did buy some Conserve for thrips. I didn't think the results were that good so I quit doing that.

Don't just think about chemicals being dangerous. I've actually purchased a respirator to wear when I use our chipper shredder. 2 years ago, we did a lot of chipping. I wore a paper mask, but it wasn't enough. I became very ill with what felt like severe bronchitis. What I had was hypersensitivity pneumonitis from inhaling particles. I had to take steroids for a few weeks. Last time, I wore the respirator.

Insecticides and fungicides may be dangerous in different ways. That does not necessarly mean that one is less toxic than the other (in the long run). Some pesticide problems may not show up for many years and in a way unexpected such that that "route" was never tested for.

The following recent research scientific paper is just one example of "the unexected/not tested".

Title: Combined exposure to endocrine disrupting pesticides impairs parturition, causes pup mortality and affects sexual differentiation in rats

Authors: P. R. Jacobsen, S. Christiansen, J. Boberg, C. Nellemann and U. Hass

Authors affiliation: Department of Toxicology and Risk Assessment, National Food Institute, Technical University of Denmark, Søborg, Denmark

Published in: International Journal of Andrology, volume 33, pages 434��"442, (2010).

ABSTRACT: "Risk assessment is currently based on the no observed adverse effect levels (NOAELs) for single compounds. Humans are exposed to a mixture of chemicals and recent studies in our laboratory have shown that combined exposure to endocrine disrupters can cause adverse effects on male sexual development, even though the doses of the single compounds are below their individual NOAELs for anti-androgenic effects. Consequently, we have initiated a large project where the purpose is to study mixture effects of endocrine disrupting pesticides at low doses. In the initial range-finding mixture studies, rats were gavaged during gestation and lactation with five doses of a mixture of the fungicides procymidone, mancozeb, epoxyconazole, tebuconazole and prochloraz. The mixture ratio was chosen according to the doses of each individual pesticide that produced no observable effects on pregnancy length and pup survival in our laboratory and the dose levels used ranged from 25 to 100% of this mixture. All dose levels caused increased gestation length and dose levels above 25% caused impaired parturition leading to markedly decreased number of live born offspring and high pup perinatal mortality. The sexual differentiation of the pups was affected at 25% and higher as anogenital distance was affected in both male and female offspring at birth and the male offspring exhibited malformations of the genital tubercle, increased nipple retention, and decreased prostate and epididymis weights at pup day 13. The results show that doses of endocrine disrupting pesticides, which appear to induce no effects on gestation length, parturition and pup mortality when judged on their own, induced marked adverse effects on these endpoints in concert with other pesticides. In addition, the sexual differentiation of the offspring was affected. This as well as the predictability of the combination effects based on dose-additivity modelling will be studied further in a large dose-response study."
--------------------------------------------
The first part of the INTRODUCTION SECTION of the full paper may be of interest:

"Animal laboratory experiments have shown that in utero exposure to endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) including some pesticides can cause adverse effects on male reproductive development (Foster, 2006; Gray et al.,
2006; Hass et al., 2007; Metzdorff et al., 2007; Christiansen et al., 2008). Individual pesticides alone have so far not been shown to contribute to adverse human effects at relevant exposure levels. However, some studies indicate increased prevalence of cryptorchidism and decreased penile length in sons of women working as gardeners or Many EDCs have been found as mixtures in humans (Blount et al., 2000; Swan et al., 2005), including children (Brock et al., 2002; Swan et al., 2005; Main et al., 2006).
Damgaard et al. (2006) observed an association between
congenital cryptorchidism and the levels of certain
organochlorine pesticides in mothers’ milk (Damgaard
et al., 2006). Earlier, Pierik et al. (2004) identified paternal exposures to pesticides and smoking as factors associated with these congenital malformations. These initial observations in epidemiological studies points in the same direction as laboratory experiments with oestrogenic or anti-androgenic chemicals in which substantial mixture effects occurred even though each individual chemical was present at low, ineffective doses (Rajapakse et al., 2002; Silva et al., 2002; Hass et al., 2007; Metzdorff et al., 2007; Christiansen et al., 2008, 2009).
Some pesticides such as vinclozolin and procymidone
antagonize competitively the androgen receptor (AR)
binding of androgens and affect mainly the reproductive
development in male offspring (Kelce et al., 1997; Ostby
et al., 1999). Other pesticides such as mancozeb and propineb act mainly via disruption of the thyroid hormones and are mainly suspected to disrupt brain development (Hurley, 1998; Hass & Axelstad, Personal Communication).
Our detailed research on prochloraz, combined with
studies on other azole fungicides such as tebuconazole
and epoxyconazole, indicates that these pesticides have
the ability to react through several endocrine disrupting
mechanisms, and to induce various endocrine disrupting
effects (Vinggaard et al., 2005a,b; Taxvig et al., 2007). We have shown that prochloraz induced anti-androgenic
effects in rats in vivo in a Hershberger test as well as in a developmental toxicity study (Vinggaard et al., 2002, 2005a). In addition, our studies show that prochloraz
increases gestation length and indicate that prochloraz
may also affect thyroid hormone levels and cause effects
on the sexually dimorphic development of the brain
(Vinggaard et al., 2002, 2005a). Both tebuconazole and
epoxyconazole increase gestation length and pup mortality and furthermore, these pesticides virilise female
pups, and affect steroid hormone levels in foetuses and ⁄ or dams (Taxvig et al., 2007)."

I have been expecting you, Henry.
I stopped using the insecticides on the entire garden many many years ago. Later I only used the insecticides and fungicides together on the roses.

I became very careful, and little by little dropped everything, and now use nothing. My garden is actually cleaner by not spraying than it ever was when I sprayed.

I no longer have the large rose blooms that I thought were so beautiful, but I have the older varieties with their own uniquie personality. In my garden almost all of my roses themselves were unacceptable.

I love the garden I have today (I will love it more when the snow melts.) If it requires spray, it dies. I love the natural beauty.

Sammy

jbeg, dear, I am only an hour south of you and I will be happy to give you hands on advice on spraying and protective clothing, whenever it is convenient for you.

I have dogs, a small child, and an outside cat. Fungicide, applied according to the directions on the label, is safe for them after it has dried. Email me through My Page here on GW, and we can set up a date if you want.

Connie

Example of "non fatal" use of fungicides that only shows up after a long time period.

"Retinal degeneration was:
� Two times more common in applicators who had used fungicides�chemicals used to control fungus and prevent rot on crops. Results were similar in North Carolina and Iowa."

Here is a link that might be useful: 2002 AGRICULTURAL HEALTH STUDY

I have to spray for a few months in the spring otherwise my bushes would be bare from blackspot. I wear protective glasses, a respirator, surgical gloves, & a long sleeved shirt & pants. As soon as I'm done I go in the house & wash my face & neck.
The spray is so fine, there's no way to avoid inhaling it without using a respirator. I got mine thru Rosemania.

I used to spray both fungicides and insecticides in my garden. I stopped everything, completely. After several years I have noticed that:

1) The need for insecticides has completely disappeared - we have so many "good" garden bugs that the aphids, etc. don't have the slightest chance! Sometimes I would see a whole bunch of bugs, look them up, and discover that they were a swarm of "soldier bugs", or lady bug larva, or some other good bug! Also we have a lot of honey bees, other bees, butterflies, and earth worms. Not to mention birds! Our garden looks and sounds like a bird sanctuary.

2) I do have some old old HTs that do get either black spot or rust. However, I have discovered that since I stopped spraying them, they get way LESS disease than they did before! I just remove the diseased leaves whenever I see them. Most of my roses are old garden types, and hardly get any disease at all.

I have come to the conclusion that spraying poison all over is not only not necessary, it is counter-productive to the long term health of gardens, not to mention people and wildlife!

Jackie

Henry, that report is interesting, but even more interesting are the reports on medications, hormones, vitamins --- everything that we considered safe. We do the best we can to take care of ourselves, and OOPS that won't protect your heart, it will increase your risk of getting a heart attack. We hear this all the time, and that is on medications for humans.

Our city used to spray regularly for mosquitoes. Small trucks would zip by as we would be walking the dogs or jogging. That innocent mosquito spray was Malathion.

Orchards spray overhead and spray frequently.

We cannot control much of what we eat or what animals eat. In my case I want to control my own garden. We all know that insecticides are dangerous, but what about fungicides? The report you shared with us indicates its dangers.

What about the sun? Oh, how I wish I had known that the sun caused cataracts!

I don't mean to hijack, but I want to share where I am coming from.

An older beautiful rose. Did my grandparents or their parents look at this rose? Did they look forward to its beauty and glory a couple of hundred years ago? Will my children enjoy it in their time? It withstands the test of time, and has such beauty and grace.

Sammy

Title: Retinal degeneration and other eye disorders in wives of farmer pesticide applicators enrolled in the Agricultural Health Study"

Abstract: "Retinal degeneration is the leading cause of visual impairment in older adults. An association between retinal degeneration and fungicide use was observed previously among farmer pesticide applicators in the Agricultural Health Study, a large study of farm families from Iowa and North Carolina. The objective of this investigation was to determine whether wives of these farmer pesticide applicators were at increased risk of retinal degeneration. Self-reported cross-sectional data obtained via questionnaire between 1993 and 1997 from 31,173 wives were used. Associations of specific pesticides and groups of pesticides based on function (fungicides, herbicides, insecticides, and fumigants) or chemical structure (organophosphates, organochlorines, and carbamates) with eye disorders were evaluated using logistic and hierarchical logistic regression analyses. Self-reported retinal degeneration was associated with the wife�s fungicide use (odds ratio = 1.9, 95% confidence interval: 1.2, 3.1) after adjustment for age and state of residence. Specific fungicides that appeared to drive this association were maneb or mancozeb and ziram. No associations between pesticide use and other eye disorders were found.
Although these findings for retinal degeneration are based solely on self-reported disease, they are consistent with those reported for farmer pesticide applicators. These findings suggest that exposure to some fungicides and other pesticides may increase the risk of retinal degeneration and warrant further investigation."
----------------------------
From the body of the full article: "This was not the case for wives, for whom the association with growing orchard fruit or other fruit remained after the analysis was restricted to wives who did not use fungicides. This difference may be partly explained by the possibility that indirect exposure to fungicides occurs when pesticides are carried home by the applicator or through spray drift from the field. The association between growing orchard fruit or other fruit and wives' retinal degeneration did not persist if neither the husband nor the wife reported fungicide use."

Here is a link that might be useful: full 2005 scientific paper

It appears that the "hot U.S. fungicide spray of the month" is Bayer Advanced Disease Control for Roses http://yardlover.indigofiles.com/316430.pdf. This is a tebuconazole based fungicide.

It is being phased out in Europe, banned in the state of New York, and not available for garden use in Canada.

The link below gives a Dec 2010 scientific research abstract concerning health problems related to its use.

In the conclusion section of the full paper, the following is stated: "In addition, it has been shown that low exposures to endocrine disrupters with similar mode of action can contribute to a total response, even though the effect of the single compounds is below the limit of detection [52�54]. The concerns are especially directed towards fetuses and infants as they are particular susceptible to endocrine disrupting substances [55,56]."

Here is a link that might be useful: link to scientific paper abstract

I always wear goggles and gloves and never spray in the wind. I also wear long sleeves, closed shoes, and long pants. I shower right after spraying but that's mainly because I can't stand the stink of the chemicals.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned organics and IPM yet. There are many "home remedies" that work well. I do spray my roses with chemicals but I don't spray my veggies with them. I use dish washing liquid, neem, beer, etc. for the veggies and the roses too.

Another thing you can do is check the container for a phone number. I have called many of the Hotlines for info and they have been very helpful. Because of pets and children, I wanted to know how long until it was safe for everyone to play in the yard. There was only one item that took 3 days. It was a systemic. Gosh, I wish I could remember the name!!

Has anyone found data that spraying causes CRS?? I've got one healthy dose of that! LOL