YES YES YES! Don't do it. The results look similar to RRD. Herbicide drift can go far, I have seen cases of 30' away. There are granular "weed and feed" mixtures that would be less harmful. The other option is to apply the herbicide by hand using a brush or soft cloth.

Well OK then. So the granular type of application would be pretty safe?

I'm going to have to let the people with lawns they care about answer. I don't use anything on my "lawn" and I don't even water it. Most of the lawn on the east side is made up of weeds.

The only herbicide allowed on my lawns are applied with a small spray bottle like Windex. That's a deterrent to the mow and blow guys, who do everything by rote. I allow no granular 2,4 D herbicides on my lawns.

If you apply a lawn herbicide or have one applied, it must be done on a windless day and you'll still get drift. Doing it yourself, you can put a barrier over the roses. For small areas, a large piece of cardboard will work. For long beds or large areas, try roll plastic.
Granular products are safer but care must still be taken to keep it out of the beds.

How high are you mowing? Cool season grasses, (fescue, bluegrass) should be mowed at the highest mower setting.

Redsox, your lawn sounds like mine. DH applies a granular weed n' feed 2x each year but it still is mainly awful weeds that just green up and pretend to look like grass all summer. I had a specialist out to the house who told me the only thing I could do is remove all of our current "lawn" and start over! I
decided I'd prefer to just keep making larger and larger rose beds til one day there's no grass to mow. Who needs grass really except as a nice walking path through the rose garden.

Actually our grass is mowed at a pretty high level. Our backyard is a brick patio so I do need grass for the kids to play on and run around.

We probably could start over but would not spend the money on that.

My husband used a granular weed and feed last year. I think it was the Scotts brand. It worked fairly well to get the lawn under control and didn't hurt the roses even the ones right next to the lawn, but he knew to be very careful not to get it into the gardens. Since then I've done some research over at the lawns forum here and this year I'm going to have my husband use Milorganite on the lawn instead, and spot spray with round-up. The worse problem areas are being converted to garden anyway so it should work out.

Scalp your grass, add fertilizer, preferably 8-8-8 or Milorganite and add a goodly amount of it once the temperature reaches 70 degrees at night, keep it watered well and your grass should overtake the weeds. Many weeds that pop up this time of year are cool-weather weeds, i.e., clovers, etc., and they will peter out once the temperature rises and add nitrogen to your soil. Good health for your lawn will cause more grass than weeds. DON'T use heribicides. That's just not very healthy grasscare.

If you decide to spray - as long as it doesn't touch any part of the rose (do it on a day with no wind) or get within 2 feet of the outer rose roots (it sinks down into the soil and spreads via water) you should be OK...

We had to resort to having chemlawn come and do our lawn. We have bermuda grass and because we are in fairly new construction, the weeds were out of control. We were spending lots of time and money putting down pre-emergent and weed control and the results were not there.

Now our lawn is almost weed free. The guys do a great job and I haven't had any problem with herbicide drift (except what I did when I was spraying roundup around the rose beds).

It's a personal decision. I don't like having all those chemicals, but I can't deny that the lawn looks great. In fact, I now have more weeds in my flowerbeds than in the lawn. The worst one is po-anna, which is an annual grass that SHOULD die when it gets warm, but unfortunately it thrives in certain parts of my yard year round. It's very difficult to get rid of. The guy came last week and I had him spray certain parts of the flowerbeds (under my strict supervision) as well as the lawn.

I think the chemicals the pros use are more effective and they have the professional equipment (sprayers and spreaders) and are very responsible.

If you must spray, use cardboard to separate the grass from roses as you go.

Carla

Redsox,
When I moved here 7 years ago, my "lawn" was mostly weeds. The previous owner did not like to do yard work. He was happy when it didn't rain for long periods as it meant he didn't have to mow.
I take pride in my lawn so I overseeded with a good grass seed and watered during dry periods. With all the dormant weed seeds in the soil my lawn never really looked good.
I finally gave in and had a local lawn care outfit take on the fertilizing/herbicide responsibility.
It began to look better after just one season.
Now, two years latter, it's relatively weed free and was the first one in the neighborhood to green up this year. The lawn care people were here in mid March to apply pre emergence crabgrass killer and fertilizer.
Once again, I'm proud of my lawn. I cut it high and often to promote healthy grass. When I see an occassional weed, I pull it. It's watered regularly.
The lawn care outfit is not part of any national company. He's a local guy who takes a personal interest in his customer's lawns. He takes great care when applying anything to avoid my roses. If there is the slightest breeze he returns on a calm day. His prices are half of TruGreen and ChemLawn.

The regional manager of Chem-Lawn was my neighbor and he has stopped by and ask me what I did to my lawn to make it the envy of the neighborhood. I told him it was all about horse manure, alfalfa and Milorganite plus loads of water in hot weather. Weeds love hot weather, but they cannot tolerate good soil mixed with water and heat.

I read one post who fertilized with Milorganite and was going to have her husband spot spray the lawn with Round Up.
Round up is not a turf herbicide. It will kill anything green it comes in contact with, including grass. To spot spray turf weeds use a turf herbicide. By all means read the label.
2-4d comes in two forms Amine and Ester. Amine form has no fumes and is safe to use close to the roses. The ester formulation has bad fumes that will kill weeds or roses if the fumes drift onto the plants. Drift is taking the sprayed
herbicide off target and moving it downwind. Anything in the path of the breeze gets it.
I have a 90 acre park behind my yard. I get a lot of dandelions. I use amine form of 2-4,d and mix some in a bucket. Then I have a big paintbrush taped to a pole. I just dip the brush into the herbicide and paint the dandelions in my rose bed. I have never suffered herbicide damage using this method.

One of my neighbors advised me to use a drop-spreader. So I went out and purchased one. It is a hand push type spreader and just drops the weed killer/fertilizer (Scotts) right down and does not spread it out over the lawn, from where it drops down is only about 2 inches from the bottom of the spreader to the lawn so there is no chance that it can fly all over too. It takes awhile to do it and you have to make sure the lawn is really wet so the granulars stick to the grass and weeds and that it is not windy.

To dan_keil_cr: I was going to use Round Up on the weeds because we mostly have problems with thistles, and Round Up is the only thing that works well on them. It does leave a dead patch but I'm okay with that. I just hate stepping on the darn thistles.

My yard was a mess when i moved here also. I didn't want to start over either, so i just overseeded with ky blue grass. Supposedly it eventually crowds out weeds and even fescue. I also fertilized last fall. This spring it is starting to make a little progress. at least it is fuller and greener. I think i probably actually just fed some of the weeds, but also whatever old grass that was here looks so much better.