Gardeners spraying | ExpatWoman.com
 

Gardeners spraying

6
Posts
EW NEWBIE
Latest post on 14 March 2012 - 12:33

Heads up ladies,
we hired a new gardener recently who sprayed whilst I was out.

This time I was in and asked to see the spray he was using. He showed me Dursban a UK manufactured organosphosphate by Dow, which meant nothing to me. However as I have young children and cats I thought I should do my research. A cursory search showed
New York sued Dow in 2003 for listing the product as safe, and that the company now only sells the product to developing countries.
The list of side effects are pretty extensive and at the extreme deadly.

When I spoke to the gardener he not only told me it was safe and he used it in hundreds of gardens

(wrongly, as it is mainly for lawns and he was spraying everything with it).

By the way the plants never looked worse than since he first sprayed with it:(((

1987
Posts
EW EXPERT
Latest post on 16 March 2012 - 11:15
My solution was to buy the concentrated organic pesticide from Organic Foods & Cafe (20% off 2morrow), made up the spray bottle ready for gardener to use. ;)
74
Posts
EW NEWBIE
Latest post on 14 March 2012 - 14:23
The "Blue Stuff" is just slow release NKP fertilizer. That stuff IS totally harmless and required for sandy soils to be able to grow lush beautiful vegetation.
3901
Posts
EW MASTER
Latest post on 14 March 2012 - 13:08
Ours doesn't spray - occasionally scatters 'medicine' from a carrier bag - looks like he's feeding chickens lol.. If it is blue then stop him;) Lol sort of grey...but he hasn't bothered since we reseeded the lawn and told him not to touch it !! Why, what's the blue stuff ??Don't know, DH told the gardener it is poison and not to bring it into our house...... Oh.. Bit like the spray stuff then..
535
Posts
EW GURU
Latest post on 14 March 2012 - 13:04
Ours doesn't spray - occasionally scatters 'medicine' from a carrier bag - looks like he's feeding chickens lol.. If it is blue then stop him;) Lol sort of grey...but he hasn't bothered since we reseeded the lawn and told him not to touch it !! Why, what's the blue stuff ??Don't know, DH told the gardener it is poison and not to bring it into our house......
3901
Posts
EW MASTER
Latest post on 14 March 2012 - 13:03
Ours doesn't spray - occasionally scatters 'medicine' from a carrier bag - looks like he's feeding chickens lol.. If it is blue then stop him;) Lol sort of grey...but he hasn't bothered since we reseeded the lawn and told him not to touch it !! Why, what's the blue stuff ??
535
Posts
EW GURU
Latest post on 14 March 2012 - 13:00
Ours doesn't spray - occasionally scatters 'medicine' from a carrier bag - looks like he's feeding chickens lol.. If it is blue then stop him;)
3901
Posts
EW MASTER
Latest post on 14 March 2012 - 12:58
Ours doesn't spray - occasionally scatters 'medicine' from a carrier bag - looks like he's feeding chickens lol..
535
Posts
EW GURU
Latest post on 14 March 2012 - 12:55
[i'>Chlorpyrifos is an organophosphate, with potential for both acute toxicity at larger amounts and neurological effects in fetuses and children even at very small amounts.[/i'> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chlorpyrifos
22
Posts
EW NEWBIE
Latest post on 14 March 2012 - 12:54
We had this problem not so long back, the gardener kept spraying every week, and said it was safe but not to go on the grass .. till the sun went down then it was fine! what the sun going down did i don't know lol, but i finally got him to show me what he was spraying and it was the same stuff this dursban, i looked online and found the same as you so stopped him spraying all together now if my garden needs "medicine" i have to buy it myself. I bet loads of people don't know the garden is being sprayed if they are at work etc :(
151
Posts
EW NEWBIE
Latest post on 14 March 2012 - 12:53
[b'>When I spoke to the gardener he not only told me it was safe and he used it in hundreds of gardens[/b'> Yeah, Yeah, bla, bla ... tell him to stop this nonsense. If a plant has a problem, he should show you first and then you can discuss how to deal with it. How much is he charging you for the spray?
 
 

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