Sabotaged garden?

16 years ago

My poor garden has been through soo much lately. I feel like I was sabotaged! I know I wasn't, but it all seemed to happen at once.

A few of the things that happened- My neighbor apparrently sprayed round up on her proerty line, which I have no porblem with, but apparently there was alot of over spray into my yard and got some of my plants. They used so much round up that one corner of my yard smelled of round up for 3 days. And in that corner of my yard is my Jaboticaba tree that is at least 5-6 years old. It used to be nice and bushy , now it is just a stick with a few branches. I thought I lost it completely but it is finally pushing out new leaves. Hopefully that little episode didn't set it back too much. I was hoping for fruit in the next 2 years.

The round up also killed my blue hibiscus and a few other things, the top half of my Cherry Rio grand is dead so I need to cut that off.

My pakistan mulberry was knocked over in a storm about a month ago and it died.

And my husband accidently mowed over some of my plants.

I know none of this was done on purpose, but it is just a bit discouraging.

Thanks for letting me vent. Only other gardeners understand the true frustration of our plants being hurt and/killed.

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Comments (12)

cindeea
16 years ago
Geeze Ariel, I'd talk to that neighbor of yours! What a shame. Damn inconsiderate of her, I think!

Sorry to see all your love and hard work undergo such pain!
goldenpond
16 years ago
Do you have a good raport with this neighbor? Maybe you could ask them kindly to let you know ahead of time if he is weed killing. Then you could put up some sort of cardboard barrier to protect the stuff you cherish.
If they are decent people and see your poor plants they will feel bad, apologize and hopefully be more careful.
If they have no consience then a solid privacy fence may be the only answer to the Round-up Rampage
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It seems plausible to suspect sabatage, but there are other possible causes: The wheel, nuts applied backward (upside-down), acorn nuts, and improper nuts. The holes in the wheel could be worn out. Note that the holes in the wheel have cone shaped shoulders to match the cone shaped nose of the lug nuts. What is supposed to happen on tightening is the nut contacts the wheel before the nut the nut goes all the way down to end of thread or contact with the lug plate. Upon further tightening, the wheel flexes a bit (acting like a big, stiff spring washer, and the nut should go tight before the nose of the nut contacts the back plate or runs out of threads. What can happen is that someone gets too agressive with the impact wrench and stretches the metal around the holes in the wheels, especially when the hardness and strenght of the wheel is much less than that of the nut. Thereafter, the wheel can not be properly tightened because the nut runs out of thread or bottoms out before becoming tight enough against the cone shaped hole in the wheel. If these were used wheels purchased to dress up the vehicle, those may have had worn out holes, or had been flattened such that no spring action remained. Lug nuts have a tapered nose on one end. If these are the common variety of lug nuts with threads all the way through, the other end of the nut is flat. It is possible to put these on backward with the flat side toward the wheel, thus negating the locking feature. Nuts so applied are in danger of loosening. The tapered end of the nut goes against the tapered shoulder of the hole in the wheel. A third potential problem comes with acorn nuts, the type that has a closed end. These look great, but these must fit the wheel and lug combination. The nut must tighten againt the shoulder of the tapered hole before running out of threads. It is obvious by now that a common machine nut is a mis-application. If the nuts are flat on both sides, these are totally wrong. Back in the 'good ole days' it was thought that loosing a lug nut was more common on left wheels than the right when all nuts and studs used right-hand threads. This harks all the way back to horse drawn wagons and buggies where the wheels were held on with a single, large, square nuts. These nuts were not put on very tight, some not much more than hand tight. The nuts on the left side had left hand threads and the right side had right hand nuts. Forward motion of the wagon or buggy tended to tighten the nuts when the wheel thrust against a nut. All went well so long as the motion was always forward. It was possible to back a nut off if a wagon was moved backward for several rotations of the wheel, but this seldom happened with experienced wagoneers since they were aware of the problem. The driver did not want the nuts to be too tight because periodically, he needed to grease the simple axle bearing. To do this, he backed the nut almost all the way off, yanked the wheel outward to expose part of the spindle, apply a dollop of grease, pushed the wheel back and snugged the nut. If the nut was too tight, the driver might not be able to loosen the nut with the rudimentary wrench carried on the wagon. So much for history. Many cars up into the 1950s had left hand threads on lug nuts and studs. Usually, the stud had the letter "L" stamped on the end of the stud. Most "grease monkeys" and "flat fixers" knew to look for the left-hand mark before applying the impact wrench. (Flats were common with inner tubes.) But in my lifetime, I did spot a couple of novices who did not know or understand about left hand threads. These guys would attempt to remove lug nuts with the air wrench set for L-H rotation, and when nothing moved, they'd jack up the torque until somehthing did move.
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tampaart
16 years ago
I can relate Ariel,

Four years ago, the rental houses behind our property had a "landscaping - ha" company spray the fence line with a potent herbicide. It damaged/killed some bananas, travelers, and slowed considerably one of my rare bamboo's. Talk about upset....I contacted the property owner who stated, "oh well, sorry". Since that time, I've considered placing signs in multiple languages stating:

"Beyond this fence is a natural environment, please contact PRIOR to any spraying of herbicides/pesticides near this fence"

I feel your pain!

TampaArt
coffeemom
16 years ago
Do you think day lilies look like overgrown St Augustine grass? Well my DH did once and mowed them down. RIP.
I sympathize. Hang in there!
msmarion
16 years ago
Oh Ariel I'm so sorry that happened to you. I agree with GP if you mention to them that if they gave you some notice you could have your cardboard ready and schedule time to protect your plants as they spray. I bet they sprayed on a windy day and never gave it a thought.
Marion
orchidluver
16 years ago
I had a number of peonies lost to heavy herbicides my neighboors sprayed, not unlike your situation! I am sorry to hear that! people can be sooo irresponsible sometimes!!! hopefully they will make amends with you somehow!!! good luck!!
jupiterplants
16 years ago
Well , let get something straight.
There was something else in the spray than just round up!
mistiaggie
16 years ago
When I was living in the townhouse I came home to find the little strip between the doors, dead. Well, most of it was a very lush groundcover of blue daze. I was so peeved! Left and it was fine, 8 hours later it was a dying mass of brown detritis. :(
laura1
16 years ago
Ariel-sorry about your garden mishaps. I'm wondering about what was in that spray too...I don't remember Round Up having much of an odor. Hmmmm
goldenpond
16 years ago
This is really sick but I was at a NATIVE PLANT meeting once and they were discussing removing invasive exotics.One gal who owned a large amount of acrage stood up and explained that in order to get the round up to stick she adds Diesel oil or kerosene. ACK!
ariel73
Original Author
16 years ago
Well the person that did it was an elderly couple next door (in their 90's)and I know they were just trying to get rid of all the grass on their property line. Though, I do know that they must have realized that they had alot over spray becuase they took the liberty of trying to prune all the dead and dying branches on my Jaboticaba.

I will give them the benefit of the doubt this time. But if it happens again I will be having a little chat with them.

I appreciate all the sympathy. Sorry to hear it has happened to others.

Ariel
garyfla_gw
16 years ago
Ariel
Can't offer any suggestions but after gardening in the same site for almost 30 years I suspect that's what we should expect lol.
IME the worst besides the hurricanes were when they put in a gas line accross the back of the property. I didn't find about it until 3 days before they started digging and I was leaving town . So I went to the foreman and politely asked if they would put the plants in a pile . I put tags on the plants that I wanted to save, carefully explained that these were the ONLY ones . They were very cooperative and I thought all was well. When I came home there were several very neat boxes covered with damp newspaper in a shaded area. The ONLY plants that were in the boxes were some mother in law tongue lol. All others were gone. Had spent years trying to eradicate them.
The very worst was the orange tree .Had 50+ orchids growing attached to it. Was told ALL the wood must be destroyed so no cutting limb sections. I mistakenly believed I only had 3 days to move them so potted 50 orchids in one afternoon with no place to put them..
Of the 50 I managed to save 25 but of course were terribly set back. The most painful disater as well as the most expensive. A footnote to this as the eradication program was stopped right after they removed my trees lol.
My latest is a storm ripped the crown out of my Schizolobium tree after ten years of growing from seed. I think it will recover but certainly not as the magnificent specimen it was just now becoming. Just now had hopes of flowers.
There are several others but the keyboard is getting wet lol gary

Sabotaged garden?

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cindeea

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