Yes, round up does "drift" when sprayed. Roundup works by disrupting the water transport up into the canes, leaves, and buds. When there's no water transport, the growth isn't getting any nutrients either. So, if there is just a little roundup on the leaves, they look sick but not dead. If there's a lot of roundup, then they're dead.

I accidently got some roundup on a ground cover rose last year - I was just painting some poison ivy growing behind it with roundup, obviously got some on the rose. It is coming back up from the root this year, though still pretty scraggly. Fortunately, it's own root, so eventually it should be okay.

So, what's up with this guy that he feels the need to spray roundup when you expressly asked him not to? Sounds like some stubborness going on

What I've done with my roundup is to buy the fancy sprayer bottle, and then attach the top half of a 2 liter soda bottle to the end of the sprayer. That way I can stick the 'funnel' right on top of the weed and spray without any drift. It works great and I haven't hurt anything that I didn't want to.

You might want to see if your husband will let you take over the roundup duties yourself. I wouldn't let my husband spray anything anywhere near my roses. Even with the lawn stuff he knows to keep it away from my gardens and not let any of the little granules near anything of mine.

Do a search for round up damage to roses or "Abiotic Disorders of Roses." There are a lot of sites that should pics of the damage. Here is one. http://members.tripod.com/buggyrose/iabioticdisorders.htm

I have seen herbicide drift up to 30' away. It does not take much.

Find Grass-B-Gone, or a herbicide with Fluazifop-p-butyl ("floozie-flop"). Easier on the roses, but still need to be careful.

Does your husband know anything about poison ivy? Is he allergic to it or know anyone who is? If so, he knows that one does not have to touch it but be in the general vicinity, 40-50 feet in order for the spores to reach the dermis and start the reaction.

RoundUp is a much worse problem. A friend is engaged in litigation with a farmer who sprayed his laid-by crops with RoundUp, killing our friend's roses. It was almost an acre away.

I would just get a really strong bottle of cheap perfume and go into a room where he is sitting and start spraying it in another corner of the room till he start to choke and gag. Then tell him that it's ridiculous to complain because you are not spraying him.

rocky, that is really funny! Now, I know I have made it sound like my husband is just horrible, but he really isn't at all! He is just a very factual person and apparantly somewhere on the roundup bottle it says that it will only harm the plants that you spray it on (or something to that effect). He just isn't buying that roundup is floating in the air and the only thing that it landed on and caused problems with are my roses. He wonders why everything in the yard isn't having problems too. I will admit, it is kind of a valid arguement since I can't give him an answer! Does amyone know if roundup damage causes the new thorns to be very soft and bendable? I'm still not sure if I'm dealing with roundup damage or RRD and I don't know if I should cut off all the funny looking growth or not.

If he wants facts, they are available in reams. There are state laws and regulations about spraying Roundup or glyphosate because of the drift to non-Roundup immune crops. This is a well recognized and documented problem in agriculture especially in rice. Various states are trying to balance the economic need for spraying with damage due to drift.
Different plants have different sensitivities and there are so many variables that it is hard to prove that there is Roundup damage to one plant and not another. I can tell you that the only rose in my garden that doesn't bloom is a China that is planted on the property line where my neighbor's lawn guys spray his lawn and beds. Can I prove it's glyphosate damage? No.

From my days of crop scouting I became very familiar with round-up on large field scales, but it can be brought down to garden and yard size as well. Roundup is a contact chemical. While some smells of chemicals just make garden plants sick, roundup is not like that. Roundup will only kill the part of a plant that the particles touch. Oftentimes with round-up damage you'll see speckeling. Keep in mind that cool wet days will make the plant look worse that it may really be, whereas warm sunny days you may not even notice you had spray drift. It all depends on the conditions at the time of spraying.

Here is a link that might be useful: Garden and Landscape Ideas

So how does roundup cause damage to new growth? My roses are currently only affected on the growth they've put out since the last time I deadheaded them. I'm pretty sure we haven't used roundup since then. The rest of the plants look fine. The more I read on the web the more convinced I am that my roses have RDD. I read one article that said rubbery thorns on new growth is a sign that the problem is definitely RDD. My roses have rubbery thorns. I really feel like I could cry right now!

I had herbicide damage and it looked like this:

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This was on my Reve d'Or. It's find now. I kept cutting off anything that looked weird.

I don't let my husband use RU. Not because he's sloppy, but he can't tell the difference between a weed and a plant I planted. Plus he hates anything viney and pulls out stuff I'm trying to grow.

I made the mistake last week end of allowing him to cut down some wild willow that was growing next to the fence (if they get big enough, our cat will use that to climb over the fence). Luckily I took what he pulled/cut over to the compost pile and saw that he pulled out a lilac bush I was growing. I was able to replant it and it seems fine.