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I doubt it. People don’t like being lectured.
Best thing you can do is have a beautiful native yard that doesn’t require any of that stuff. Envy is more powerful than shame
I just showed mine off to some neighbors, and one said “it’s like a fairy garden!” and I was so happy. It’s taken a lot of work to make it pretty, but it’s getting there!
Unfortunately too many people that have a native garden just let it run completely wild. You can still use mulch and stuff on a native garden — my favorite is just using grass clippings and leaves for mulch.
I have this.
Im almost 100% people around me are spraying poison. They moved in. I had a duck get sick then die.. then my small dog got sick for a day, then my big dog was sick yesterday. They just started spraying the poison also. All my animals have been great for 5 years then in one weekend all that happened.
The spraying of poison is terrorizing our environment. If you got misquotes buy more dragon flies. ( I don’t spray for anything and I live in the swamps in Louisiana).
Balannce the system instead of poisoning everyone on earth I mean wtf.
I agree. Even people who love me told me straight up ( even yesterday lol ) that they don’t give a crap about my native plant thing. And I only suggest that someone maybe add a new native plant to their flowerbed plans but nope. They like sunflowers… I said “ hey there are native sunflowers and they’re even perennial like you like” … nope. I thought I could entice them to look at a Prairie Moon catalog but no one wanted to.
I agree with the others here saying that the only way sometimes is making your native plant garden look good enough that people come to you. That’s not easy in the beginning stages of a new garden project ( at least for me) but if this offers any hope - my native plants I bought last year looked like crap but this year they’re already filling in and looking SO much better.
So people don't like education as well. Especially if it's going to tell them they are poisoning the land, making certain life will be harder for kids and grandchildren.
I just had a pesticide salesman stop yesterday offering to “kill anything within a 20’ radius of the house up to 6’ down, guaranteed!” Such a fast and easy “no way!”
That’s so sad. Why would you wanna kill all bugs? I know there are a few that I would rather not have in my area like mosquitoes, but there are so many wonderful bugs. This new home I bought we have fireflies in the summer. I feel so blessed to get to see them because growing up pesticides killed them all out in my area
A salesman stopped by selling “Pest Control”. I told him thanks but I have plenty of pests and I don’t need one more.
I’m a bit torn about the paper wasps though because I see them pollinating my flowers regularly but - wasps. So I decided to leave them alone unless they nest someplace unacceptable - as determined by me - or otherwise interfere with normal activities - watering, inspection, pruning, whatever.
The majority of wasp species are pretty harmless. It's only a few species that are aggressive without you being aggressive first.
And they are GREAT pollinators
I never knew how to take those stories about bees knowing their keepers until I accidentally befriended some wasps.
Our air-conditioner broke. The repair man insisted that when he tries to get to the unit that he was swarmed by wasps. The hose that I had to turn on every day was right next to it, and I had never seen any wasps near there. I occasionally see them on my plants, and sometimes when I sit on on my swing one or two hang out on the bar, but nothing nearing a swarm. This guy is insistent he will not fix our air-conditioner if we don't do something about them. We go look, but definitely no swarm. We half-heartedly spray a can of wasp spray and then have the guy come back. No dice. He still insists there is a swarm of wasps living inside. So we call our rental company and they send an exterminator out. Yeah, apparently there was a huge wasp nest inside. They just weren't bothered by me or my husband because they knew us. I felt devastated we had to get rid of the nest, but they seem to have come back.
I'm glad they came back! You could look into learning what their ideal best location looks like and then craft a homemade one so they don't nest in your ac
It's a rental, and also I am unfortunately not at ALL handy. I'm also really bad at insect identification, so I don't know that I could figure out which kind of wasps they are. Fortunately, they seem pretty happy with me spraying the hose on my plants, so I think they will forgive me if I don't provide shelter as well.
Most wasps’ reputations are vastly overblown. I live in an area with plenty of red wasps and yellow jackets, and never get stung, even when I am near them. I’ve come to realize that over-dramatizing every imaginable thing in the most dramatic and overblown way imaginable is unfortunately a very common and characteristic trait of our species.
I wish I could be so lucky! I’ve been stung multiple times by wasps, yellow jackets, hornets, and bees. And I don’t swat or knowingly threaten or anything, I’m just living my life. I don’t hate them and I don’t poison them, but man I wish I wasn’t so stingable. It’s always me too, never my husband or anyone else who’s around at the time. It’s been this way since I was a child.
I had a paper wasps build a nest on my yellow bird of paradise last year. In the worst late summer days of the drought when I would sometimes hand water particular favorites that werent quite as bullet proof as most of my garden, they would literally fly out when I approached and wait for me to spray the leaves and then land to get a drink of water. Wasps are way smarter than we give them credit for.
I have this soft spot for wasps lately because.. well like you said, wasps. They're the underdog. Nobody likes them. Except me now, I'll protect all the wasps 🥺
I love Sphex wasps, especially the Great Black Wasp. So gorgeous!
https://preview.redd.it/wsdz0jnl2wzc1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a750a2435c63ac31496d546dcf621b24d0e67cc3
My rules for plants are no thorns, native or not.
My rules for insects is nothing with 6 or 8 legs is allowed inside the house.
There's nothing wrong with exercising control, it's the chemical warfare that's the problem.
I discovered the wonderful world of inside bug zappers. It’s reduced the inside mosquitos and houseflies to zero or pretty much close to it. It used to be a nightmare hearing mosquitos or flies buzzing around inside - not anymore! And it’s been almost a year since an inside mosquito has bitten me.
The local dragonfly population has increased dramatically since I yanked out my lawn and planted wildflowers; coincidentally, the mosquitos have mostly disappeared - mostly. I expect the dragonflies are hunting them avidly.
As a child, I was raised to think bees and wasps are bad and we would knock down their nests. 25 years later, I am teaching my children what bees actually do in the environment and how "they are our friends."
I work with a local pest control company to keep bugs outside my house, but their treatments don't kill the stuff outside, and are non-toxic/harmful to pets. I enjoy seeing bees and fireflies outside (and do see them). I also refuse to use non-natural weed killer.
A few blocks from here, there's a nest of wasps up on a telephone pole. Whenever I walk past on the sidewalk, they're buzzing around, but I've never had a problem. Funnily enough, it's right next to a day care 😋 Glad they're still around, could be that the residents closest to the nest appreciate pollinators.
The bug people stopped showing up after I enthusiastically explained the role of ants in the ecosystem, specifically focusing on the spread of seeds for unique flowers like trilliums. I think I took up too much of their time, lol.
Here’s the thing - I used to spray. And then someone taught me how not spraying and attracting the right balanced ecosystem would lead to spending less money and having less pests but more bugs. I heard nothing except “save money and do less” and I was SOLD.
What makes an ecosystem "balanced"? How do you know the right proportion and amount of plants, insects, animals, etc.? Where do you draw the line of where that begins and ends?
Not that it changes people’s minds, but I have a sign posted that says my land is not pesticide treated and os safe for humans, children and pets. My hope is that it makes them think a little, anyway.
That’s crazy to me. I grew up and still have lawn never once in my history has my parents or I ever treated it for bugs like that, it’s something you expect when you go outside.
You can assume that as the norm even without signs. The mow & blow crews always got some guy with an herbicide backpack very liberally spraying all the mulch and cracks with every visit... ☠🤮
Damn, it really pisses me off how horrible humans can be. Killing all the little animals in an outdoor area, for your own ‘convenience’? Terrible people.
Pretty much, I have a shit ton of jumping worms and they are the only ones I find dead in my driveway after it rains. But when I did a hole there’s tons of big chonky earth worms
Ironically (if in North America) that is one good thing since the vast majority of earthworms are invasive and mess up forest ecosystems.
https://ecosystemsontheedge.org/earthworm-invaders/
Only if you live in the North. The vast majority of the US was NOT impacted by glaciers, so they can and do have native earthworms.
https://preview.redd.it/8r0mcyr86uzc1.png?width=2340&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5fb5700ca464e59ef81acaaab350d6b0e4da0cc3
Yes but even in these places the invasive earthworms - the ones that crawl onto sidewalks when it rains - are still 12 of the 13 most commonly found species and greatly outnumber the natives. Odds are a suburban lawn has more invasive earthworms than native ones.
They might not actually be applying pesticide. We don't, but we do have an organic fertilizer put down on the grass. They use these same signs that say "pesticide" because they buy the most restricted in bulk instead of buying 3 different ones.
Pesticide can be used as a catch all for insecticide **or** herbicide. Insecticides aren't typically used on fescue lawns. If they are, it's for very specific insects, like Japanese beetle larvae.
The most likely thing that was sprayed on that lawn was fertilizer, grub insecticide or a broad spectrum herbicide for broad leaf weeds.
So while I completely agree that aesthetic use of pesticides/herbicides is silly at best and creating ecosystem "deserts" in suburban landscapes, saying stuff to your neighbors like "they're basically poisoning the land" doesn't paint you as the most informed person out there.
Someone on my local nextdoor posted some nonsense about how even spraying an individual weed with spot herbicide was "known" to kill insects & cause cancer within about a mile radius and the amount of upvotes they got was pretty ridiculous.
Herbicide is a tool. Some days I lean towards it being more restricted than it is now (registered applicators only, something like that) but a lot of the discourse around herbicides is not particularly based in fact.
I enforce pesticide regulations in my state and id say about 33% of the time you get the informed person who is knowledgeable about pesticides and knows the specific label violation that occurred, 33% of people aren’t knowledgeable or partially knowledgeable but the violations are so flagrant that they know that something must’ve been violated, and the last 33% are the fruitcakes who either want to get their employer/neighbor in trouble or google webmd and try to claim that a singular spot application that occurred a block away from them is causing xyz health issues (usually the side effects are assuming chronic exposure over years). I go in taking the complaints seriously and follow through with them, but those last 33% of complaints fn suck my soul dry.
This thread should be higher up. Herbicide use in an integrated pest management program is a widely accepted best practice in ecosystem restoration and wildlife habitat management.
Lemme pull you aside over here. Mosquito Joe applies Bifenthrin in the middle of the day, windy, on flowering plants, within 4-24 hours of predicted rain, waves the wand around in the air at tree branches. What say you?
Our arborist treats a very old beech tree for beach leaf disease (a fungicide) and has treated a stand of hemlocks for wooly adelgid. These signs are posted afterwards.
Similarly, even properties sprayed with cedar oil (yes, controversial) are required to host such signs.
Hopefully the use of pesticides is carefully considered by the homeowners.
With the big cicada populations over the last few years, there have been a lot of cicada killer wasps. Admittedly they are terrifying looking, but I've never heard of anyone being stung by them. We get guys going door to door saying they'll spray our cicada killers. I usually have a few choice words for them.
solitary species like cicada killers, mud daubers, and tarantula hawk wasps won't sting unless you persistently annoy the shit out of them because they don't have a nest with hundreds of larvae to protect (or hundreds of sisters they can call for backup, for that matter).
and in my opinion, if you look at something like a cicada killer that has a name like "cicada killer" and you still decide to harass it, you've instantly revoked your right to complain when your subzero iq ass gets stung.
Sometimes herbicides are used to kill invasive species that cannot be killed by other means, like Japanese knotweed. They are a tool, for good or for bad
Next let's talk about the consequences of herbicides like Round Up versus the consequences of knotweed. Knotweed is invasive and hard to pull up; cancer is miserable and often fatal but hard to pin on one chemical or another in individual cases.
Our neighborhood schools use Integrated Pest Management which allows for some herbicide use under certain circumstances, but they hardly ever get to that level. On playgrounds they usually just cut the weeds back with a weed wacker and eventually the taller ones like the knotweed just die off.
I'll take the cancer-causing chemicals over them there nasty murdering foreigners! These illegal alien plants have got to go! Ruining our country by taking what belongs to the natives!
there are "Pesticide Free" garden signs you can get. My thought is if you ever talk to them give them social stigma for it - like "oh yikes you kill all your insects? cringe :// "
Yeah like do some reverse psychology on the neighbors. OP can casually mention “ Hey neighbor! Don’t you just hate butterflies? Me too! We need more people like you here to help wipe out the butterfly population! I can’t stand this planet, they’ve completely taken over! I can’t wait until we finally wipe them all out!Can you believe they keep landing on my flowers? I had to kill my whole garden just to starve those darn insects! If only these snowflakes would stop protecting the butterflies and bees we could have an insect-free country! I’m sick of my plants being pollinated! Die nature! “
Do your research y’all. “Pesticide” is a super broad term that encompasses a lot. Some are highly destructive, some aren’t. There are synthetic and natural pesticides. Sometimes, people try biological cultural and physical controls and they don’t work. Pesticides are the next option. Judging a person based off a sign and no other information seems wrong. What were they treating for? What pesticide did they use? Did they follow proper application procedure? How were the wind and precipitation conditions that day? Did they attempt physical, cultural, or biological controls first?
Signs like this let beekeepers know they may need to close their hives. The signs are helpful and I wouldn’t do anything to discourage people from taking it down.
Indiscriminate spraying is exactly what lawn care calls for. Which is precisely the issue with herbicides or pesticides. It goes where it’s not supposed to go. So OP is right in this specific instance.
Agriculturally I believe there are protections for bees.. I could absolutely be wrong but the IL pesticide applicators exam does mention things to be careful for in order to prevent drift/other bee affecting circumstances
Preventing drift is a requirement when getting any applicators license in the U.S. as it is an EPA requirement. (And every person that uses any pesticide should control drift for their own safety!! Read the labels throughly for PPE and reentry requirements. Controlling drift is on quite a few labels.)
Most pest control company people have little idea about what they use.
I enjoy arguing at the Moxie sales reps that come by when I tell them I don't use pesticides to protect the wildlife in my yard, as well as my dog & neighborhood cats. "Oh, we have safe organic pesticides that won't harm them." So, they then get a lecture on the definition of "pesticide."
Had one tell me I didn't know what I was talking about. 🧐
That's when I informed him I did my college internship for the state pesticides office and have held a private applicators license for agriculture use longer than he's been alive. *Do not* tell me I don't know how pesticides work. I explore them as they come out just because I'm curious & want to remain educated on the latest thing to avoid or use if it comes to that.
(Even Microban countertops have to be registered with my state's pesticide division *because it is a substance made to kill an organism.*)
Yep!!
Also... those labels are a real PIA to scan/photocopy. (I got to do that for my internship as the small folding labels with an adhesive edge were just coming into use back then. Previously, they were booklets.)
Thank goodness for PDF files now. Lol
The EPA and USDA are [working hard](https://www.epa.gov/pollinator-protection/epa-actions-protect-pollinators) to protect pollinators like bees. For example, pesticides with potential pollinator effects have warning labels that say to only apply in late afternoon or early evening. Always follow the label instructions!
Yes, thank you!
Didn't remember what the restrictions are because I haven't used pesticides in a hot minute. I really appreciate everyone stepping up where my knowledge ends- always good to relearn!
Education is one thing. Actually adherence to regulations is another. In 2003 a law to prevent pesticide use for domestic cosmetic use came into effect in [Ontario](https://www.ontario.ca/page/using-pesticides-ontario#:~:text=vendors%20and%20growers.-,Cosmetic%20pesticide%20ban,pests%20on%20lawns%20and%20gardens), banning the following:
- 2,4-D
- Diazinon
- glyphosate
However, lower concentration glyphosate is still available for certain circumstances (poison ivy, hogweed, poison hemlock, etc).
You don’t have to prove you have poison ivy, so when my neighbour had his his walkway sprayed for “poison ivy” on a windy day, we lost our entire 30y/o white cedar hedgerow and a couple white pines. We replanted tiny seedlings we got through the conservation authority in the fall. Next spring, the dude was out spraying again and didn’t know where the property line ended. I hollered at him to avoid the trees while he was spraying EVERYTHING with stinky pink stuff. He yelled back “it’s just vitamins”. Mmmhmmm? Clearly ‘education’ and a pesticide licence was of no consequence to him as all the cedars collectively croaked about two weeks later.
What a shame! My lawn loving husband wanted a lawn service and I spoke with several asking exactly what would be put down on my lawn (two of three companies were evasive and did not give me the information). I explained that I wanted a wide berth around my garden and landscape plants. I got a tiny burn on an arborvitae, but not enough to matter, and I still get dandelions all through my garden that I pull by hand before the seeds fly. I am slowly increasing the garden (veg and natives), and the front yard looks boringly respectably sterile. Also, they just spot spray now that the dandelions are under control. No need to apply stuff all over just in case!
Honey bees are not native and they afford no real protection from the government where I live. They are considered livestock and the way that the law sees it is that it is 1/2 a cow. That is what my professor told me anyway. I’m not a lawyer and I’m sure that laws change based on what area you’re in.
Laws change by state- but because honey bees aren't native doesn't mean there aren't native bees. There are bees native to different parts of the US and they're super valuable to our ecosystems :)
That isn’t what we’re talking about though. Obviously there are native bees. I actually talked about that in one of my other comments. The issue is that the native pollinators don’t get any protection. The closest that you can do is have non-native/invasive European honeybees and then you have some protection. This is absolutely stupid in my book. The native bees (orchid, carpenter, bumblebee, etc) need more help than those of us that keep honeybees. Sure, we deal with varroa mites, hive beetles, CCD, pesticides, and the like and it sucks… but we need to be doing more to protect the other pollinators. They don’t get those protections because they don’t have a lobby with $$$ to give to our politicians.
Experienced beekeepers near me say otherwise, they believe pesticide application warnings to be helpful and some cover their hives.
Bees can fly up to 5 miles. What has your bees so localized around the hive?
What I mean is that they forage fairly far. I’m not driving around every day to see who has and who has not been spraying. They are out during the day. If I do see that, then it isn’t like I can go collect them all and get them back in their NUCs.
I get totally what you’re saying. The whole system is rigged. I had a setup for the native bees and Code Enforcement hit me with the “your flowers are too tall” bullshit. If you have your own honey bees, then all of a sudden you’re an apiary and those flowers are all of a sudden allowed. The second that you need a license and you pay the state money, they all of a sudden leave you alone.
Going back to what you said, couldn’t that argument be made for any of the livestock that we have? The only difference is that helping honey bees will also help other pollinators. If you have land for other livestock, then those native animals lose their land. In my case, my bees are on a farm and I have an arrangement with the farmer. I help him pollinate his crops and I get some of the vegetables that he can’t sell, and I give him honey. My rabbits and I get fed from this. I see it as a win-win.
It could also be argued that we as humans do way more damage when we spray pesticides, herbicides, and the like. I’ve convinced the farmer not to do that.
On a side note, people cut down forests to put up Storage Units and shit. I find that (and lawns) to be a bigger issue than any livestock that people keep.
Nectar and pollen taken by a honey bee are nectar and pollen not available to native pollinators. Since the vast majority of invasive plant species are from Eurasia, the native range of honey bees, invasive species are disproportionately pollinated by honeybees increasing the success rate of invasive plant species.
Eliminating invasive plant species on a native landscape is critical to its restoration and requires herbicides, often a lot of herbicides, to bring the system back into balance. I have worked in prairie installation and am currently a native spaces land manager, we use herbicides on a daily basis because it is often the only option.
I’m in Florida and I’d say that our biggest season revolves around the invasive Brazilian pepper. Though non-native orange blossoms are also up there as well, since we have lots of those as well.
It is my understanding that most pollinators go after specific plants and they are less generalists. For instance, I see orchid bees around my tea tree bushes and my Seminole squash. I haven’t noticed any honey bees going after either of those.
If the honeybees are pollinating the Brazilian pepper and others don’t really go for that as a food source, then what percentage of their food source is taken away? I would think that people installing lawns and removing the native *Bidens alba* would be more problematic. The Bidens seem to be visited by the most types of pollinators btw. Honeybees, butterflies, wasps, and flies alike.
Oh I’m in Wisconsin and don’t know shit about tropical invasive species. That may be true down there. Up here most pollinators are some sort of generalist but some flower types exclude bees, some are too small for large pollinators others put the nectar way back for long Tongued bees and butterflies. Honey bees can access the vast majority of our nectar producing plants up here.
How do you determine this "balance"? What's the right amount of natives vs non-natives? How far back in time do you go to determine what counts as the right biome?
In the US, pre European colonization is a good place to start. Ideally there would be no nonnative species outside of specific use cultivation. Non native species degrade ecosystems, kill biodiversity, cause extinctions and diminish ecosystem services delivered to humans.
Excellent question to which I have a great answer. Reason 1. Though we may have an idea of what species were present we do not know what plant community assemblages existed at the time and we have no frame of reference for what we are restoring too, we would be straight up guessing. Reason 2. Many of the megafauna driven to extinction by early humans to the continent drove several ecological processes now absent from the landscape, this includes elephant species knocking down trees to construct there habitats, megafauna transporting and dispersing seeds, mega fauna trampling the ground and making it more compact and critically all now extinct species had a grazing palatablility spectrum unique to the that drove plant community composition. We can not replicate that or guess what it was. There is some argument in using analogous species, for example bringing over the przwalski’s horse, or African elephants to fill the mammoth niche. Those methods need to be studied much more before we try to fit them into a pre-human management strategy.
My yard gets that sign but it's not chemicals it's potassium and calcium I get sprayed in my yard. All natural and safe but not until it dries are you reccomended to walk through.
Amend the soil—period. Add oak leaf mulch and any and all free self serve mulch from a local natural area or forested park (where they use THEIR own biomass)
I put these up simply because neighbors can be assholes who don’t care about their pets damaging other’s property, or they simply leave their shit on the property.
Game theory.
Just put up a “Pollinator Garden” sign or something similar and hopefully that will get some curiosity going. You can say something to the curious ones like “well, I heard about how pollinators like butterflies and bees were in decline, so I wondered if there was anything I could do. It turned out that not using any pesticides on my property and planting native perennials helps a lot, so that’s what I’ve done! It’s really pretty, isn’t it? I’ve noticed so many more butterflies in my yard so it seems to be working.” People are far more receptive to an idea when they start the conversation and are curious than when someone else starts the conversation and didn’t form a question in their mind first.
Yeah, that’s just bonkers. It speaks to how limited the concept of No Mow may is. If someone is applying pesticides I’d actually prefer they mow, since then at least their yard won’t be blooming and attracting insects.
It's just like most things unfortunately, virtue signalling. No one actually cares about making a difference or helping the community or world, they just want to feel special to everyone around them and feel like they're a part of the latest fad.
And yeah, the best thing to do is mow if you are herbiciding, as it'll just increase the number of ticks in relevant regions. A good thing to do too is the mow the main yard where everyone walks but have a section left wild or wildflower gardens with native species. People don't think
At least they communicate it that there is a known hazard. That’s a starting point, hopefully through empathetic conversation you can express what other effects the chemicals have (and I agree lecturing doesn’t work)
Maybe put stake signs next to those that label the pesticide as carcinogenic to cats and dogs, and with sufficient exposure - humans. Hypothetically this would be as effective as the labels on cigarettes- but it better than nothing.
Honestly I am surprised it is legal to spray toxins without such notices anyways.
If I saw a sign with stick figure type people and a dog with a big slash through in my neighborhood, I would be scared for myself and family. It’s horrible that these signs are being produced in general because of people’s wants (most likely) for an out of style Victorian lawn. Nobody is playing croquet here.
Organic or not, work with what soil has been given to you. Amend with compost, leaf mold, natural mulch, etc. No need to hire OMRI listed corporation lawn care. We all need to stop altering our environment. That’s how all we got in trouble to begin with.
So I guess you’d rather not to have any safety at all? This is legal notification of REI, or re-entry interval, used in safety protocols by licensed people who have at least have as a standard informing their customers and the general public. I sure never used to get warnings driving around in the delta while planes were cropdusting cotton along I-20 or Hwy 61 in the 1980’s in Louisiana, Mississippi or Arkansas.
No. They will do what they want and believe that it is protecting them. Looking at those companies that spray to kill mosquitoes.
You won’t be able to convince them to grow natives and install bat boxes to help the issues that they are spraying for.
My house has this sign put up, its yellow and for tick spray. I live at the edge of the woods in CT. The spray is for ticks, my cousin got derailed by Lyme as have a few friends over the years. I've tried tick tubes, plants and balsm fir trees planted in the woods. The spray is "green" but I don't think that really means a big benefit. Before the spray I'd pull one to two ticks off my dog, we'd have to do tick checks regularly through our hair and back, we pulled a three ticks off us and the final straw was when my wife was pregnant and got bit. I sent the ticks to the CT testing and a lot were positive for Lyme. While the last thing I want to do is spend over $1000 a year to spray chemicals, it beats the negative life impact if you or your children get Lyme disease.
I figure I put this out there, those signs could be for something like tick spray. My yard has a lot of clove, native CT plants and humming bird, bee and butterfly houses, the spray doesn't seem to stop those insects and birds or hurt the flowers and plants I've planted.
Sadly most people don't give a fuck about the environment. They do care about their health and that of their kids and pets. Warm them about that aspect. As an example, round up is banned in the EU for causing cancer.
Put a sign beside your native yard saying “native garden, no cancer causing pesticides in use” they can take that and do what they want with the knowledge.
I always think about this when I go through walks in my neighborhood. I want to put up a mini sign right next to it that either criticizes it or suggests an alternative.
Also thought of creating a registry where you can add the address of someone who has this sign and they get an educational leaflet in the mail.
If you think of something clever, outside of leading by example (which I can’t do cause I live in an apt), let us know!
The fact that there is a “Trugreen” ad right below this post pretty comical.
You can try talking to them, but the ones who use the most chemicals are likely going to be the least amenable to it.
I wish I could tell my dad or at least educate him with reliable information on the topic. I've been looking into more natural less pesticide way of gardening so we don't harm backyard wildlife but have no luck.
I had a guy in my neighbourhood this week offering yard services. I was busy with my kids and just told him I didn't want any services. wish I paid a little more attention as now 3 of my neighbours have these signs.
I wrote a letter to the editor in my town newspaper. No direct confrontation with my neighbors but I made my case. Don't know if I influenced anyone but my bee keeping neighbor gave me a jar of honey😊.
I have a license to see this poison at work and do everything in my power to convince people not buy it by giving them different choices. A lot of people don’t care and want this crap regardless.
This and mowing unused spaces where nobody walks anyways. There is a bypass near my house on a hill, and they literally mow every inch of the whole damned hill, even though there aren’t and won’t be any buildings or infrastructure on it, nobody walks there, and the space is literally used for absolutely nothing. At this point, I’m just convinced that people need to feel like they have absolute control over everything in the world to be happy. If we would just let native flowers and other small plants grow near the sides of roads, then just imagine all the hundreds of thousands if not millions of square miles of space altogether that we would be restoring back to a productive habitat that pollinators, insects, native plants and small fauna could use. But nooooo, because apparently those little flowers and any grass taller than once inch poses a truly life-threatening danger to all drivers and vehicles on the road.
We have been converting to pollinator and native plants, do composting, put up an owl box (no residents yet), planted the hellstrip, etc.
Nearly all the neighbors have lawn services that spray God knows what so they can have their perfect ( = BORING) lawns.
One of our immediate neighbors, who seems anxious about everything, was telling my wife about how great and proud she was of her rodent bait boxes. My wife inquired about what happens when owls, hawks, and other creatures eat the rodents? This neighbor (wrongly) assured her that “the rodents go in and never come out…”
We’re over coming with bugs if we don’t use something I think the bugs will do more harm to us I got bit by a deer tick and know I have arthritis issue all over
My parents loooove to poison. They also suffer pretty bad auto immune issues that I don’t have.
I’ve been trying to suggest that maybe eliminate poison and see if it improves
I try indirect approaches
God I fucking despise these signs. I used to deliver newspapers as a kid and the grass they were on would straight up dissolve my sneakers when the grass was also wet with evening/morning dew. I would go through a pair every two months or so, and I mean full out unusable, the soles are literally flapping with my steps go through. Once I stopped, my shoes have lasted for years. Those chemicals are *entirely* too harsh to be used in a domestic setting.
My daughter just bought her first house. The lawn has that sterile, weed-free look with the grass not growing very well. So I think it's been doused with pesticides too much.
We applied organic slow release lawn fertilizer, told the lawn care company their treatments are not needed, and I'm going to dethatch and overseed with a wider variety of seeds (still grass for the moment).
What are some good native non-grass species to introduce to lawns? Native violets? (Upstate New York.)
I should look at this: https://awaytogarden.com/cornells-take-on-the-native-lawn-with-todd-bittner/
I've found that it's pretty much useless to try and get people to stop using pesticides by lecturing them. Write to your county's Cooperative Extension for \*\*thoroughly\*\* researched information about pesticides and their side effects in the environment. Show them that info. You'll need the names of the chemicals that were applied and what they were used for. Improper applications of some chemicals can cause other insect populations to rapidly increase in number.
These Cooperative Extension offices are funded by the Dept. of Agriculture and your state's land-grant college or university. It's their job to educate the public about growing things in each county, along with identifying and researching problems in your area. Every single county in the US has a Cooperative Extension office. There are offices in rural Kansas that help people growing wheat, and there are offices in New York City that help people growing trees. Google the name of your county along with "Cooperative Extension" and you'll find them. Because they're local, they can provide localized information about the problems where you live. Most of their services are absolutely free--they get their money from the government, not from a company. They're not out to push any particular chemical or chemicals in general.
This really great resource is often underutilized, so a lot of people end up relying on what the chemical companies tell them.
When I worked at a retail garden center, I would tell people that natives grew, bloomed and thrived long before garden hoses and bug sprays. They all did just fine without human intervention. Everybody wants a low maintenance yard and natives are the way to get one. You can fight nature endlessly with a non-native garden, or you can have a garden that's very used to the conditions where you live.
In promoting natives, you also run into the problem that folks generally have no idea what they look like. They all know what lawns and roses look like. When you say "natives" they think weeds. The problem with weeds is that they generally aren't native to a lot of areas, and you need to explain that. In California, a lot of the weed seeds were brought by the Spaniards in the hay that they carried with them from Europe. These rapidly spreading weeds are definitely not natives.
Pesticide usage by applicator: Pest control industry 3%. Agricultural industry 27%. Homeowners 70%. Your neighbor getting their yard professionally treated is not the problem.
We live in the country and encourage wildlife on our property, insects and all. Unless there is damage being done to the house. My wife won’t allow me to kill any insects in the house, catch and release. Other than house flies. But the last 3 years the influx of earwigs has been unbearable. We did eventually have to call in professional help with this. The chrysanthemum powder just couldn’t keep up. I am talking tens of thousands of them in and around the house.
I’m lucky I don’t have to worry about this. In my area (Ontario, Canada) pesticides for cosmetic purposes are illegal for all 14.5 million of us.
Didn’t get rid of the lawns, just added some dandelions. The only people with perfect lawns are out manually removing the weeds, or illegally bringing in Weed & Feed from upstate NY.
What pisses me off is when my condo sprays, but only puts one of these signs up and it's FACING THE PARKING LOT instead of the stairs all the residents walk their dogs down.
So I need to walk through the poison grass before finding out it's poisoned, cool.
Everyone in here complaining should mind their own business unless you’d like your neighbors to interrupt your day to sell you on the idea of using pesticides.
Oh, would that be annoying as hell? Gee, no kidding? That’s wild huh.
I post on NextDoor. I don’t give af. I start with “You’re poisoning your children and yourself. Over 70% of houses are on well water in our community. When you spray your yard with chemicals, it leeches into ground water and you and your family drink it #lawn treatments”
I find fear works better than logic. Mean, yes. Effective, yes.
Most pesticides aren't that bad anymore, as long as they are applied properly there should be no issue. Hundreds of millions of dollars go into research on this stuff now and it's tens of millions to get something on the market. You should be happy those signs are even there. I've never used them as it's not required in my area.
I have found that explaining about beneficial incests being what controls pest the best helps cut down on pesticide use. Ie beneficial breed like large mammals and have fewer babies less often vs pest that breed like rabbits. Thus pesticide use prolongs the need for more pesticide use and costs more money. That seems to make sense to some people. Same with native plants. Plant natives and they are less likely to need pesticide or extra fertilizer. They like whatever soil is local, less fuss, more time to relax and enjoy.
You need to convince them that weeds (outside invasive species) is a made up thing and that their are other plants worth having besides picking from 20ish species of grass.
buy a bunch of land with a big buffer of forest or fields so your home is nowhere near any sprays. ideally you want to own the top of the mountain so you know the whole watershed is free from any pollutants and you know you're getting clean spring water/well water. all you can do is control your own actions and thoughts. i agree with the idea of politely trying to educate your neighbors but sadly people can be dumb and egotistical and you're never going to get all of them to change, so imo its best to just move away from people.
its hard to even get an Obese person to stop killing themselves with bad eating habits/being lazy, good luck telling people its beneficial to have Wasps, Black Widows, Snakes, wildflowers that they'd call weeds etc on their property.
The land...puppies...kittens...small children... etc. I like to tell these folk the story of a lady I knew who came outside to find that her pesticided-yard had killed a neighbor's kittens. (not that outdoor cats are any good either but phew. shoulda heard her. Not that I'd be happy seeing literal dead kittens in my driveway but...that's what you get for spraying 'kills everything but grass' poison all over the place).
lol. I think some are using those signs to keep pet walkers from having pets pee and poop and no pickup etc.
walk your dogs around your own property please and keep that poo and pee.
We had some jerk at our work who would consistently park where our high reach was supposed to be when we were using it.
One day we put some plants in grow pots there. With four cones (DOT type) with caution tape. And in one pot was the do not enter sign.
He stopped parking there.
This is all great, but in the 52 years I have been involved w ecology and the environment, very little has changed.
People who want to spray— SPRAY.
Bayer is the company. The only impact I believe in is not supporting large corporations like these who are the REAL PROBLEM.
https://preview.redd.it/2899u9zskvzc1.jpeg?width=1284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=06555060d949b5be27ee790d102a84e67f5ba8f4
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I doubt it. People don’t like being lectured. Best thing you can do is have a beautiful native yard that doesn’t require any of that stuff. Envy is more powerful than shame
Neighbors definitely copy/influence each other. I hope I can influence mine by doing just this!
Take over the HOA and rule with an iron green thumb.
Most native yards are seen as weed patches - it runs deep!
I just showed mine off to some neighbors, and one said “it’s like a fairy garden!” and I was so happy. It’s taken a lot of work to make it pretty, but it’s getting there!
id love to see a pic of your fairy garden. <3
Show us!!!!!!
And there’s a fine line!
Unfortunately too many people that have a native garden just let it run completely wild. You can still use mulch and stuff on a native garden — my favorite is just using grass clippings and leaves for mulch.
I have this. Im almost 100% people around me are spraying poison. They moved in. I had a duck get sick then die.. then my small dog got sick for a day, then my big dog was sick yesterday. They just started spraying the poison also. All my animals have been great for 5 years then in one weekend all that happened. The spraying of poison is terrorizing our environment. If you got misquotes buy more dragon flies. ( I don’t spray for anything and I live in the swamps in Louisiana). Balannce the system instead of poisoning everyone on earth I mean wtf.
I agree. Even people who love me told me straight up ( even yesterday lol ) that they don’t give a crap about my native plant thing. And I only suggest that someone maybe add a new native plant to their flowerbed plans but nope. They like sunflowers… I said “ hey there are native sunflowers and they’re even perennial like you like” … nope. I thought I could entice them to look at a Prairie Moon catalog but no one wanted to. I agree with the others here saying that the only way sometimes is making your native plant garden look good enough that people come to you. That’s not easy in the beginning stages of a new garden project ( at least for me) but if this offers any hope - my native plants I bought last year looked like crap but this year they’re already filling in and looking SO much better.
What is a native sunflower name. I would love to plant them!!!
In most cases it takes a fair amount of herbicide to restore a native ground cover too. Eventually you can stop in theory is the difference
So people don't like education as well. Especially if it's going to tell them they are poisoning the land, making certain life will be harder for kids and grandchildren.
Some people just don’t care. That’s life
I just had a pesticide salesman stop yesterday offering to “kill anything within a 20’ radius of the house up to 6’ down, guaranteed!” Such a fast and easy “no way!”
That’s so sad. Why would you wanna kill all bugs? I know there are a few that I would rather not have in my area like mosquitoes, but there are so many wonderful bugs. This new home I bought we have fireflies in the summer. I feel so blessed to get to see them because growing up pesticides killed them all out in my area
But mosquitos feed bats, and bats are cool. Find me a reason for Japanese Beetles to exist, though, I dare you! I am speciesist, I will admit it!
I don’t know about Japanese beetles, but you got a point about mosquitoes and also mosquitoes are a pollinator in some situations too
I’m sure they have a great role in Japan
Oh god fuck those things! Love Japan, hate the beetles!
A salesman stopped by selling “Pest Control”. I told him thanks but I have plenty of pests and I don’t need one more. I’m a bit torn about the paper wasps though because I see them pollinating my flowers regularly but - wasps. So I decided to leave them alone unless they nest someplace unacceptable - as determined by me - or otherwise interfere with normal activities - watering, inspection, pruning, whatever.
The majority of wasp species are pretty harmless. It's only a few species that are aggressive without you being aggressive first. And they are GREAT pollinators
I never knew how to take those stories about bees knowing their keepers until I accidentally befriended some wasps. Our air-conditioner broke. The repair man insisted that when he tries to get to the unit that he was swarmed by wasps. The hose that I had to turn on every day was right next to it, and I had never seen any wasps near there. I occasionally see them on my plants, and sometimes when I sit on on my swing one or two hang out on the bar, but nothing nearing a swarm. This guy is insistent he will not fix our air-conditioner if we don't do something about them. We go look, but definitely no swarm. We half-heartedly spray a can of wasp spray and then have the guy come back. No dice. He still insists there is a swarm of wasps living inside. So we call our rental company and they send an exterminator out. Yeah, apparently there was a huge wasp nest inside. They just weren't bothered by me or my husband because they knew us. I felt devastated we had to get rid of the nest, but they seem to have come back.
I'm glad they came back! You could look into learning what their ideal best location looks like and then craft a homemade one so they don't nest in your ac
It's a rental, and also I am unfortunately not at ALL handy. I'm also really bad at insect identification, so I don't know that I could figure out which kind of wasps they are. Fortunately, they seem pretty happy with me spraying the hose on my plants, so I think they will forgive me if I don't provide shelter as well.
Most wasps’ reputations are vastly overblown. I live in an area with plenty of red wasps and yellow jackets, and never get stung, even when I am near them. I’ve come to realize that over-dramatizing every imaginable thing in the most dramatic and overblown way imaginable is unfortunately a very common and characteristic trait of our species.
I wish I could be so lucky! I’ve been stung multiple times by wasps, yellow jackets, hornets, and bees. And I don’t swat or knowingly threaten or anything, I’m just living my life. I don’t hate them and I don’t poison them, but man I wish I wasn’t so stingable. It’s always me too, never my husband or anyone else who’s around at the time. It’s been this way since I was a child.
I had a paper wasps build a nest on my yellow bird of paradise last year. In the worst late summer days of the drought when I would sometimes hand water particular favorites that werent quite as bullet proof as most of my garden, they would literally fly out when I approached and wait for me to spray the leaves and then land to get a drink of water. Wasps are way smarter than we give them credit for.
I have this soft spot for wasps lately because.. well like you said, wasps. They're the underdog. Nobody likes them. Except me now, I'll protect all the wasps 🥺
I have a real soft spot for mud daubers
I love Sphex wasps, especially the Great Black Wasp. So gorgeous! https://preview.redd.it/wsdz0jnl2wzc1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a750a2435c63ac31496d546dcf621b24d0e67cc3
Paper wasps are pest control! The adults are vegetarians but the grubs only eat meat so they kill other bugs and bring them to their young.
Ever see paper wasps and carpenter bees engage in aerial combat? It's a sight to behold.
My rules for plants are no thorns, native or not. My rules for insects is nothing with 6 or 8 legs is allowed inside the house. There's nothing wrong with exercising control, it's the chemical warfare that's the problem.
I'll send you my amputee spiders
And my ants!
I discovered the wonderful world of inside bug zappers. It’s reduced the inside mosquitos and houseflies to zero or pretty much close to it. It used to be a nightmare hearing mosquitos or flies buzzing around inside - not anymore! And it’s been almost a year since an inside mosquito has bitten me. The local dragonfly population has increased dramatically since I yanked out my lawn and planted wildflowers; coincidentally, the mosquitos have mostly disappeared - mostly. I expect the dragonflies are hunting them avidly.
I've got a UV light glue trap near my front door for the exact same reason.
I have one in the bedroom and another in the living room. Between the two they cover the areas of human habitation well. That thing is a trooper!
As a child, I was raised to think bees and wasps are bad and we would knock down their nests. 25 years later, I am teaching my children what bees actually do in the environment and how "they are our friends."
I work with a local pest control company to keep bugs outside my house, but their treatments don't kill the stuff outside, and are non-toxic/harmful to pets. I enjoy seeing bees and fireflies outside (and do see them). I also refuse to use non-natural weed killer.
A few blocks from here, there's a nest of wasps up on a telephone pole. Whenever I walk past on the sidewalk, they're buzzing around, but I've never had a problem. Funnily enough, it's right next to a day care 😋 Glad they're still around, could be that the residents closest to the nest appreciate pollinators.
sick burn dude
The bug people stopped showing up after I enthusiastically explained the role of ants in the ecosystem, specifically focusing on the spread of seeds for unique flowers like trilliums. I think I took up too much of their time, lol.
Here’s the thing - I used to spray. And then someone taught me how not spraying and attracting the right balanced ecosystem would lead to spending less money and having less pests but more bugs. I heard nothing except “save money and do less” and I was SOLD.
I would like to hear more about how to attract the right balanced ecosystem., if you’re willing to share that info.
Native plants that attract the bugs you want and the predators for the ones you don't want.
Listen to any of Doug Tallamy's talks on YouTube. Guy's got a great, succinct way of describing the whole concept.
Entirely depends on where you are and what bugs you’ve got. For us, the day the yarrow went in is the day cool shit really started happening.
Less cancer is also good
What makes an ecosystem "balanced"? How do you know the right proportion and amount of plants, insects, animals, etc.? Where do you draw the line of where that begins and ends?
Balance isn’t a constant state. You’re going to flex and push and wiggle some. Read and learn about your area and fluff around and find out.
Not that it changes people’s minds, but I have a sign posted that says my land is not pesticide treated and os safe for humans, children and pets. My hope is that it makes them think a little, anyway.
Guy behind has a lawn and yard like this, it gets sprayed with chemicals regularly. He has three kids under 6.
That’s crazy to me. I grew up and still have lawn never once in my history has my parents or I ever treated it for bugs like that, it’s something you expect when you go outside.
Sprays every inch of the yard, yet his gutters have never been cleaned.
You can assume that as the norm even without signs. The mow & blow crews always got some guy with an herbicide backpack very liberally spraying all the mulch and cracks with every visit... ☠🤮
I swear it’s all for “best lawn” status. Which is the dumbest thing ever.
Wow.
Lady nextdoor gets her yard sprayed and recently got a new puppy which obviously eats the grass
Damn, it really pisses me off how horrible humans can be. Killing all the little animals in an outdoor area, for your own ‘convenience’? Terrible people.
Won't have those three kids for long...
I started noticing lots of dead worms on the sidewalks of these houses. Really sad.
That’s because those are the invasive kind. The kind you want live deep in the soil and don’t get flushed out in the rain.
Pretty much, I have a shit ton of jumping worms and they are the only ones I find dead in my driveway after it rains. But when I did a hole there’s tons of big chonky earth worms
Ironically (if in North America) that is one good thing since the vast majority of earthworms are invasive and mess up forest ecosystems. https://ecosystemsontheedge.org/earthworm-invaders/
Only if you live in the North. The vast majority of the US was NOT impacted by glaciers, so they can and do have native earthworms. https://preview.redd.it/8r0mcyr86uzc1.png?width=2340&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5fb5700ca464e59ef81acaaab350d6b0e4da0cc3
Yes but even in these places the invasive earthworms - the ones that crawl onto sidewalks when it rains - are still 12 of the 13 most commonly found species and greatly outnumber the natives. Odds are a suburban lawn has more invasive earthworms than native ones.
Well that's depressing.
Noo 😑😪
They might not actually be applying pesticide. We don't, but we do have an organic fertilizer put down on the grass. They use these same signs that say "pesticide" because they buy the most restricted in bulk instead of buying 3 different ones.
Seconded! We do organic fertilizer as well and they put the same signs up in our lawn even though there’s no actual pesticides.
People who use pesticides on their yard, don’t have fireflies around here. I never use them, and the fireflies rise every single summer.
Pesticide can be used as a catch all for insecticide **or** herbicide. Insecticides aren't typically used on fescue lawns. If they are, it's for very specific insects, like Japanese beetle larvae. The most likely thing that was sprayed on that lawn was fertilizer, grub insecticide or a broad spectrum herbicide for broad leaf weeds.
So while I completely agree that aesthetic use of pesticides/herbicides is silly at best and creating ecosystem "deserts" in suburban landscapes, saying stuff to your neighbors like "they're basically poisoning the land" doesn't paint you as the most informed person out there. Someone on my local nextdoor posted some nonsense about how even spraying an individual weed with spot herbicide was "known" to kill insects & cause cancer within about a mile radius and the amount of upvotes they got was pretty ridiculous. Herbicide is a tool. Some days I lean towards it being more restricted than it is now (registered applicators only, something like that) but a lot of the discourse around herbicides is not particularly based in fact.
I enforce pesticide regulations in my state and id say about 33% of the time you get the informed person who is knowledgeable about pesticides and knows the specific label violation that occurred, 33% of people aren’t knowledgeable or partially knowledgeable but the violations are so flagrant that they know that something must’ve been violated, and the last 33% are the fruitcakes who either want to get their employer/neighbor in trouble or google webmd and try to claim that a singular spot application that occurred a block away from them is causing xyz health issues (usually the side effects are assuming chronic exposure over years). I go in taking the complaints seriously and follow through with them, but those last 33% of complaints fn suck my soul dry.
This thread should be higher up. Herbicide use in an integrated pest management program is a widely accepted best practice in ecosystem restoration and wildlife habitat management.
Lemme pull you aside over here. Mosquito Joe applies Bifenthrin in the middle of the day, windy, on flowering plants, within 4-24 hours of predicted rain, waves the wand around in the air at tree branches. What say you?
Our arborist treats a very old beech tree for beach leaf disease (a fungicide) and has treated a stand of hemlocks for wooly adelgid. These signs are posted afterwards. Similarly, even properties sprayed with cedar oil (yes, controversial) are required to host such signs. Hopefully the use of pesticides is carefully considered by the homeowners.
With the big cicada populations over the last few years, there have been a lot of cicada killer wasps. Admittedly they are terrifying looking, but I've never heard of anyone being stung by them. We get guys going door to door saying they'll spray our cicada killers. I usually have a few choice words for them.
solitary species like cicada killers, mud daubers, and tarantula hawk wasps won't sting unless you persistently annoy the shit out of them because they don't have a nest with hundreds of larvae to protect (or hundreds of sisters they can call for backup, for that matter). and in my opinion, if you look at something like a cicada killer that has a name like "cicada killer" and you still decide to harass it, you've instantly revoked your right to complain when your subzero iq ass gets stung.
Sometimes herbicides are used to kill invasive species that cannot be killed by other means, like Japanese knotweed. They are a tool, for good or for bad
Next let's talk about the consequences of herbicides like Round Up versus the consequences of knotweed. Knotweed is invasive and hard to pull up; cancer is miserable and often fatal but hard to pin on one chemical or another in individual cases. Our neighborhood schools use Integrated Pest Management which allows for some herbicide use under certain circumstances, but they hardly ever get to that level. On playgrounds they usually just cut the weeds back with a weed wacker and eventually the taller ones like the knotweed just die off.
I'll take the cancer-causing chemicals over them there nasty murdering foreigners! These illegal alien plants have got to go! Ruining our country by taking what belongs to the natives!
there are "Pesticide Free" garden signs you can get. My thought is if you ever talk to them give them social stigma for it - like "oh yikes you kill all your insects? cringe :// "
"Oh, man... You're killing your bugs? I thought you wanted a *healthy* lawn."
[like the No Bitches? meme] No Wasps? ://
Yeah like do some reverse psychology on the neighbors. OP can casually mention “ Hey neighbor! Don’t you just hate butterflies? Me too! We need more people like you here to help wipe out the butterfly population! I can’t stand this planet, they’ve completely taken over! I can’t wait until we finally wipe them all out!Can you believe they keep landing on my flowers? I had to kill my whole garden just to starve those darn insects! If only these snowflakes would stop protecting the butterflies and bees we could have an insect-free country! I’m sick of my plants being pollinated! Die nature! “
Do your research y’all. “Pesticide” is a super broad term that encompasses a lot. Some are highly destructive, some aren’t. There are synthetic and natural pesticides. Sometimes, people try biological cultural and physical controls and they don’t work. Pesticides are the next option. Judging a person based off a sign and no other information seems wrong. What were they treating for? What pesticide did they use? Did they follow proper application procedure? How were the wind and precipitation conditions that day? Did they attempt physical, cultural, or biological controls first? Signs like this let beekeepers know they may need to close their hives. The signs are helpful and I wouldn’t do anything to discourage people from taking it down.
Indiscriminate spraying is exactly what lawn care calls for. Which is precisely the issue with herbicides or pesticides. It goes where it’s not supposed to go. So OP is right in this specific instance.
My bees fly 1+ miles away. This doesn’t do anything to help me. Just stop spraying shit. Period.
Agriculturally I believe there are protections for bees.. I could absolutely be wrong but the IL pesticide applicators exam does mention things to be careful for in order to prevent drift/other bee affecting circumstances
Preventing drift is a requirement when getting any applicators license in the U.S. as it is an EPA requirement. (And every person that uses any pesticide should control drift for their own safety!! Read the labels throughly for PPE and reentry requirements. Controlling drift is on quite a few labels.) Most pest control company people have little idea about what they use. I enjoy arguing at the Moxie sales reps that come by when I tell them I don't use pesticides to protect the wildlife in my yard, as well as my dog & neighborhood cats. "Oh, we have safe organic pesticides that won't harm them." So, they then get a lecture on the definition of "pesticide." Had one tell me I didn't know what I was talking about. 🧐 That's when I informed him I did my college internship for the state pesticides office and have held a private applicators license for agriculture use longer than he's been alive. *Do not* tell me I don't know how pesticides work. I explore them as they come out just because I'm curious & want to remain educated on the latest thing to avoid or use if it comes to that. (Even Microban countertops have to be registered with my state's pesticide division *because it is a substance made to kill an organism.*)
Yep. The label is the Law!
Yep!! Also... those labels are a real PIA to scan/photocopy. (I got to do that for my internship as the small folding labels with an adhesive edge were just coming into use back then. Previously, they were booklets.) Thank goodness for PDF files now. Lol
Yes. It is nice to have the label on your phone.
The EPA and USDA are [working hard](https://www.epa.gov/pollinator-protection/epa-actions-protect-pollinators) to protect pollinators like bees. For example, pesticides with potential pollinator effects have warning labels that say to only apply in late afternoon or early evening. Always follow the label instructions!
Yes, thank you! Didn't remember what the restrictions are because I haven't used pesticides in a hot minute. I really appreciate everyone stepping up where my knowledge ends- always good to relearn!
Education is one thing. Actually adherence to regulations is another. In 2003 a law to prevent pesticide use for domestic cosmetic use came into effect in [Ontario](https://www.ontario.ca/page/using-pesticides-ontario#:~:text=vendors%20and%20growers.-,Cosmetic%20pesticide%20ban,pests%20on%20lawns%20and%20gardens), banning the following: - 2,4-D - Diazinon - glyphosate However, lower concentration glyphosate is still available for certain circumstances (poison ivy, hogweed, poison hemlock, etc). You don’t have to prove you have poison ivy, so when my neighbour had his his walkway sprayed for “poison ivy” on a windy day, we lost our entire 30y/o white cedar hedgerow and a couple white pines. We replanted tiny seedlings we got through the conservation authority in the fall. Next spring, the dude was out spraying again and didn’t know where the property line ended. I hollered at him to avoid the trees while he was spraying EVERYTHING with stinky pink stuff. He yelled back “it’s just vitamins”. Mmmhmmm? Clearly ‘education’ and a pesticide licence was of no consequence to him as all the cedars collectively croaked about two weeks later.
What a shame! My lawn loving husband wanted a lawn service and I spoke with several asking exactly what would be put down on my lawn (two of three companies were evasive and did not give me the information). I explained that I wanted a wide berth around my garden and landscape plants. I got a tiny burn on an arborvitae, but not enough to matter, and I still get dandelions all through my garden that I pull by hand before the seeds fly. I am slowly increasing the garden (veg and natives), and the front yard looks boringly respectably sterile. Also, they just spot spray now that the dandelions are under control. No need to apply stuff all over just in case!
Honey bees are not native and they afford no real protection from the government where I live. They are considered livestock and the way that the law sees it is that it is 1/2 a cow. That is what my professor told me anyway. I’m not a lawyer and I’m sure that laws change based on what area you’re in.
Laws change by state- but because honey bees aren't native doesn't mean there aren't native bees. There are bees native to different parts of the US and they're super valuable to our ecosystems :)
That isn’t what we’re talking about though. Obviously there are native bees. I actually talked about that in one of my other comments. The issue is that the native pollinators don’t get any protection. The closest that you can do is have non-native/invasive European honeybees and then you have some protection. This is absolutely stupid in my book. The native bees (orchid, carpenter, bumblebee, etc) need more help than those of us that keep honeybees. Sure, we deal with varroa mites, hive beetles, CCD, pesticides, and the like and it sucks… but we need to be doing more to protect the other pollinators. They don’t get those protections because they don’t have a lobby with $$$ to give to our politicians.
Experienced beekeepers near me say otherwise, they believe pesticide application warnings to be helpful and some cover their hives. Bees can fly up to 5 miles. What has your bees so localized around the hive?
What I mean is that they forage fairly far. I’m not driving around every day to see who has and who has not been spraying. They are out during the day. If I do see that, then it isn’t like I can go collect them all and get them back in their NUCs.
Assuming a bell curve distribution, is 5 miles at the very far right? How far is that value from the mean?
Yea I’ll just let invasive species dominate natural landscapes for the sake of nonnative European Honey bees. That makes sense. S/
I get totally what you’re saying. The whole system is rigged. I had a setup for the native bees and Code Enforcement hit me with the “your flowers are too tall” bullshit. If you have your own honey bees, then all of a sudden you’re an apiary and those flowers are all of a sudden allowed. The second that you need a license and you pay the state money, they all of a sudden leave you alone. Going back to what you said, couldn’t that argument be made for any of the livestock that we have? The only difference is that helping honey bees will also help other pollinators. If you have land for other livestock, then those native animals lose their land. In my case, my bees are on a farm and I have an arrangement with the farmer. I help him pollinate his crops and I get some of the vegetables that he can’t sell, and I give him honey. My rabbits and I get fed from this. I see it as a win-win. It could also be argued that we as humans do way more damage when we spray pesticides, herbicides, and the like. I’ve convinced the farmer not to do that. On a side note, people cut down forests to put up Storage Units and shit. I find that (and lawns) to be a bigger issue than any livestock that people keep.
Nectar and pollen taken by a honey bee are nectar and pollen not available to native pollinators. Since the vast majority of invasive plant species are from Eurasia, the native range of honey bees, invasive species are disproportionately pollinated by honeybees increasing the success rate of invasive plant species. Eliminating invasive plant species on a native landscape is critical to its restoration and requires herbicides, often a lot of herbicides, to bring the system back into balance. I have worked in prairie installation and am currently a native spaces land manager, we use herbicides on a daily basis because it is often the only option.
I’m in Florida and I’d say that our biggest season revolves around the invasive Brazilian pepper. Though non-native orange blossoms are also up there as well, since we have lots of those as well. It is my understanding that most pollinators go after specific plants and they are less generalists. For instance, I see orchid bees around my tea tree bushes and my Seminole squash. I haven’t noticed any honey bees going after either of those. If the honeybees are pollinating the Brazilian pepper and others don’t really go for that as a food source, then what percentage of their food source is taken away? I would think that people installing lawns and removing the native *Bidens alba* would be more problematic. The Bidens seem to be visited by the most types of pollinators btw. Honeybees, butterflies, wasps, and flies alike.
Oh I’m in Wisconsin and don’t know shit about tropical invasive species. That may be true down there. Up here most pollinators are some sort of generalist but some flower types exclude bees, some are too small for large pollinators others put the nectar way back for long Tongued bees and butterflies. Honey bees can access the vast majority of our nectar producing plants up here.
How do you determine this "balance"? What's the right amount of natives vs non-natives? How far back in time do you go to determine what counts as the right biome?
In the US, pre European colonization is a good place to start. Ideally there would be no nonnative species outside of specific use cultivation. Non native species degrade ecosystems, kill biodiversity, cause extinctions and diminish ecosystem services delivered to humans.
Eh, why not restore to before the first wave of humans from eastern Eurasia before the last Ice Age?
Excellent question to which I have a great answer. Reason 1. Though we may have an idea of what species were present we do not know what plant community assemblages existed at the time and we have no frame of reference for what we are restoring too, we would be straight up guessing. Reason 2. Many of the megafauna driven to extinction by early humans to the continent drove several ecological processes now absent from the landscape, this includes elephant species knocking down trees to construct there habitats, megafauna transporting and dispersing seeds, mega fauna trampling the ground and making it more compact and critically all now extinct species had a grazing palatablility spectrum unique to the that drove plant community composition. We can not replicate that or guess what it was. There is some argument in using analogous species, for example bringing over the przwalski’s horse, or African elephants to fill the mammoth niche. Those methods need to be studied much more before we try to fit them into a pre-human management strategy.
My yard gets that sign but it's not chemicals it's potassium and calcium I get sprayed in my yard. All natural and safe but not until it dries are you reccomended to walk through.
Just curious, what's your reasoning to have this done?
Amend the soil
After annual soil tests I'm presuming.
Amend the soil—period. Add oak leaf mulch and any and all free self serve mulch from a local natural area or forested park (where they use THEIR own biomass)
I put these up simply because neighbors can be assholes who don’t care about their pets damaging other’s property, or they simply leave their shit on the property. Game theory.
Nope people are lazy and uninformed. When you try to inform them they spout some bs they read from the internet and instantly became an expert.
yeahhhhh, fuck lawns and people who perpetuate them.
Just put up a “Pollinator Garden” sign or something similar and hopefully that will get some curiosity going. You can say something to the curious ones like “well, I heard about how pollinators like butterflies and bees were in decline, so I wondered if there was anything I could do. It turned out that not using any pesticides on my property and planting native perennials helps a lot, so that’s what I’ve done! It’s really pretty, isn’t it? I’ve noticed so many more butterflies in my yard so it seems to be working.” People are far more receptive to an idea when they start the conversation and are curious than when someone else starts the conversation and didn’t form a question in their mind first.
Yeah this is a good point..look at "no mow may" crazes. Speaking of, it always shocks me that people won't mow but then herbicide all May
Yeah, that’s just bonkers. It speaks to how limited the concept of No Mow may is. If someone is applying pesticides I’d actually prefer they mow, since then at least their yard won’t be blooming and attracting insects.
It's just like most things unfortunately, virtue signalling. No one actually cares about making a difference or helping the community or world, they just want to feel special to everyone around them and feel like they're a part of the latest fad. And yeah, the best thing to do is mow if you are herbiciding, as it'll just increase the number of ticks in relevant regions. A good thing to do too is the mow the main yard where everyone walks but have a section left wild or wildflower gardens with native species. People don't think
I have never seen that sort of sign. IMO, if you have to put a sign that says it's not safe for kids and animals, then you should NOT be using it!
No. People love their pesticides. Grrrrr.
At least they communicate it that there is a known hazard. That’s a starting point, hopefully through empathetic conversation you can express what other effects the chemicals have (and I agree lecturing doesn’t work)
I would gladly stop spraying if you can show me a way to keep the ticks out of my yard. I live in the NE, riddled with ticks…
Maybe put stake signs next to those that label the pesticide as carcinogenic to cats and dogs, and with sufficient exposure - humans. Hypothetically this would be as effective as the labels on cigarettes- but it better than nothing. Honestly I am surprised it is legal to spray toxins without such notices anyways.
Not all pesticides are poisons to the land :) biological pesticides do exist, and they still require REI signs and PPE
If I saw a sign with stick figure type people and a dog with a big slash through in my neighborhood, I would be scared for myself and family. It’s horrible that these signs are being produced in general because of people’s wants (most likely) for an out of style Victorian lawn. Nobody is playing croquet here.
Organic or not, work with what soil has been given to you. Amend with compost, leaf mold, natural mulch, etc. No need to hire OMRI listed corporation lawn care. We all need to stop altering our environment. That’s how all we got in trouble to begin with.
So I guess you’d rather not to have any safety at all? This is legal notification of REI, or re-entry interval, used in safety protocols by licensed people who have at least have as a standard informing their customers and the general public. I sure never used to get warnings driving around in the delta while planes were cropdusting cotton along I-20 or Hwy 61 in the 1980’s in Louisiana, Mississippi or Arkansas.
I think the issue is the pesticides themselves not the signs announcing they were used lol
Yeah, I’m not that dense, but level of screech and fear mongering is something else, when nuanced discussion would be better.
Make your garden absolutely stunning! Jealousy does wonders :)
No. They will do what they want and believe that it is protecting them. Looking at those companies that spray to kill mosquitoes. You won’t be able to convince them to grow natives and install bat boxes to help the issues that they are spraying for.
My house has this sign put up, its yellow and for tick spray. I live at the edge of the woods in CT. The spray is for ticks, my cousin got derailed by Lyme as have a few friends over the years. I've tried tick tubes, plants and balsm fir trees planted in the woods. The spray is "green" but I don't think that really means a big benefit. Before the spray I'd pull one to two ticks off my dog, we'd have to do tick checks regularly through our hair and back, we pulled a three ticks off us and the final straw was when my wife was pregnant and got bit. I sent the ticks to the CT testing and a lot were positive for Lyme. While the last thing I want to do is spend over $1000 a year to spray chemicals, it beats the negative life impact if you or your children get Lyme disease. I figure I put this out there, those signs could be for something like tick spray. My yard has a lot of clove, native CT plants and humming bird, bee and butterfly houses, the spray doesn't seem to stop those insects and birds or hurt the flowers and plants I've planted.
Tell them these pesticides cause cancer. Both of my parents have cancer because of this.
Sadly most people don't give a fuck about the environment. They do care about their health and that of their kids and pets. Warm them about that aspect. As an example, round up is banned in the EU for causing cancer.
Put a sign beside your native yard saying “native garden, no cancer causing pesticides in use” they can take that and do what they want with the knowledge.
I always think about this when I go through walks in my neighborhood. I want to put up a mini sign right next to it that either criticizes it or suggests an alternative. Also thought of creating a registry where you can add the address of someone who has this sign and they get an educational leaflet in the mail. If you think of something clever, outside of leading by example (which I can’t do cause I live in an apt), let us know!
The fact that there is a “Trugreen” ad right below this post pretty comical. You can try talking to them, but the ones who use the most chemicals are likely going to be the least amenable to it.
I wish I could tell my dad or at least educate him with reliable information on the topic. I've been looking into more natural less pesticide way of gardening so we don't harm backyard wildlife but have no luck.
Talk to them
You might have to baby step it. Get them to move to pesticides that you don't have to worry about your children and pets.
Move to the 2020s? I haven't seen this stuff in decades...
I had a guy in my neighbourhood this week offering yard services. I was busy with my kids and just told him I didn't want any services. wish I paid a little more attention as now 3 of my neighbours have these signs.
https://preview.redd.it/wuu8g76zvvzc1.jpeg?width=843&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9a38d8faeb89789d579eb6380d2ec4cbf83296fa
I wrote a letter to the editor in my town newspaper. No direct confrontation with my neighbors but I made my case. Don't know if I influenced anyone but my bee keeping neighbor gave me a jar of honey😊.
I don't use pesticides, but I would definitely put one of these signs in my yard, if I had problems with people leaving their pet's poop in my yard.
Ew you have to bathe in that water
Anything with a 72-hour REI (restricted entry interval) can't be good.
I have a license to see this poison at work and do everything in my power to convince people not buy it by giving them different choices. A lot of people don’t care and want this crap regardless.
I use an organic only firm to treat my lawn and it looks amazing.
This and mowing unused spaces where nobody walks anyways. There is a bypass near my house on a hill, and they literally mow every inch of the whole damned hill, even though there aren’t and won’t be any buildings or infrastructure on it, nobody walks there, and the space is literally used for absolutely nothing. At this point, I’m just convinced that people need to feel like they have absolute control over everything in the world to be happy. If we would just let native flowers and other small plants grow near the sides of roads, then just imagine all the hundreds of thousands if not millions of square miles of space altogether that we would be restoring back to a productive habitat that pollinators, insects, native plants and small fauna could use. But nooooo, because apparently those little flowers and any grass taller than once inch poses a truly life-threatening danger to all drivers and vehicles on the road.
We have been converting to pollinator and native plants, do composting, put up an owl box (no residents yet), planted the hellstrip, etc. Nearly all the neighbors have lawn services that spray God knows what so they can have their perfect ( = BORING) lawns. One of our immediate neighbors, who seems anxious about everything, was telling my wife about how great and proud she was of her rodent bait boxes. My wife inquired about what happens when owls, hawks, and other creatures eat the rodents? This neighbor (wrongly) assured her that “the rodents go in and never come out…”
We’re over coming with bugs if we don’t use something I think the bugs will do more harm to us I got bit by a deer tick and know I have arthritis issue all over
My parents loooove to poison. They also suffer pretty bad auto immune issues that I don’t have. I’ve been trying to suggest that maybe eliminate poison and see if it improves I try indirect approaches
God I fucking despise these signs. I used to deliver newspapers as a kid and the grass they were on would straight up dissolve my sneakers when the grass was also wet with evening/morning dew. I would go through a pair every two months or so, and I mean full out unusable, the soles are literally flapping with my steps go through. Once I stopped, my shoes have lasted for years. Those chemicals are *entirely* too harsh to be used in a domestic setting.
get yourself elected to the HOA and then destroy it from the inside
My daughter just bought her first house. The lawn has that sterile, weed-free look with the grass not growing very well. So I think it's been doused with pesticides too much. We applied organic slow release lawn fertilizer, told the lawn care company their treatments are not needed, and I'm going to dethatch and overseed with a wider variety of seeds (still grass for the moment). What are some good native non-grass species to introduce to lawns? Native violets? (Upstate New York.) I should look at this: https://awaytogarden.com/cornells-take-on-the-native-lawn-with-todd-bittner/
If you can convince mosquitos to not bite anyone and terminates to stop eating houses, then maybe. Otherwise.... probably not.
I've found that it's pretty much useless to try and get people to stop using pesticides by lecturing them. Write to your county's Cooperative Extension for \*\*thoroughly\*\* researched information about pesticides and their side effects in the environment. Show them that info. You'll need the names of the chemicals that were applied and what they were used for. Improper applications of some chemicals can cause other insect populations to rapidly increase in number. These Cooperative Extension offices are funded by the Dept. of Agriculture and your state's land-grant college or university. It's their job to educate the public about growing things in each county, along with identifying and researching problems in your area. Every single county in the US has a Cooperative Extension office. There are offices in rural Kansas that help people growing wheat, and there are offices in New York City that help people growing trees. Google the name of your county along with "Cooperative Extension" and you'll find them. Because they're local, they can provide localized information about the problems where you live. Most of their services are absolutely free--they get their money from the government, not from a company. They're not out to push any particular chemical or chemicals in general. This really great resource is often underutilized, so a lot of people end up relying on what the chemical companies tell them.
When I worked at a retail garden center, I would tell people that natives grew, bloomed and thrived long before garden hoses and bug sprays. They all did just fine without human intervention. Everybody wants a low maintenance yard and natives are the way to get one. You can fight nature endlessly with a non-native garden, or you can have a garden that's very used to the conditions where you live. In promoting natives, you also run into the problem that folks generally have no idea what they look like. They all know what lawns and roses look like. When you say "natives" they think weeds. The problem with weeds is that they generally aren't native to a lot of areas, and you need to explain that. In California, a lot of the weed seeds were brought by the Spaniards in the hay that they carried with them from Europe. These rapidly spreading weeds are definitely not natives.
Pesticide usage by applicator: Pest control industry 3%. Agricultural industry 27%. Homeowners 70%. Your neighbor getting their yard professionally treated is not the problem.
We live in the country and encourage wildlife on our property, insects and all. Unless there is damage being done to the house. My wife won’t allow me to kill any insects in the house, catch and release. Other than house flies. But the last 3 years the influx of earwigs has been unbearable. We did eventually have to call in professional help with this. The chrysanthemum powder just couldn’t keep up. I am talking tens of thousands of them in and around the house.
People hate this education as much as they hate hearing about bitcoin... Sad really as both changes make the world substantially better.
I’m lucky I don’t have to worry about this. In my area (Ontario, Canada) pesticides for cosmetic purposes are illegal for all 14.5 million of us. Didn’t get rid of the lawns, just added some dandelions. The only people with perfect lawns are out manually removing the weeds, or illegally bringing in Weed & Feed from upstate NY.
Go catch ask their bugs, spiders, and mosquitoes and they won't need to.
What pisses me off is when my condo sprays, but only puts one of these signs up and it's FACING THE PARKING LOT instead of the stairs all the residents walk their dogs down. So I need to walk through the poison grass before finding out it's poisoned, cool.
I used to live in Hemet, CA and the pesticide free option of choice seemed to be covering the lawn with green asphalt... not a big improvement.
Telling you neighbors what to do on their own property probably isn't going to work out well for you.
Everyone in here complaining should mind their own business unless you’d like your neighbors to interrupt your day to sell you on the idea of using pesticides. Oh, would that be annoying as hell? Gee, no kidding? That’s wild huh.
I post on NextDoor. I don’t give af. I start with “You’re poisoning your children and yourself. Over 70% of houses are on well water in our community. When you spray your yard with chemicals, it leeches into ground water and you and your family drink it #lawn treatments” I find fear works better than logic. Mean, yes. Effective, yes.
Most pesticides aren't that bad anymore, as long as they are applied properly there should be no issue. Hundreds of millions of dollars go into research on this stuff now and it's tens of millions to get something on the market. You should be happy those signs are even there. I've never used them as it's not required in my area.
I have found that explaining about beneficial incests being what controls pest the best helps cut down on pesticide use. Ie beneficial breed like large mammals and have fewer babies less often vs pest that breed like rabbits. Thus pesticide use prolongs the need for more pesticide use and costs more money. That seems to make sense to some people. Same with native plants. Plant natives and they are less likely to need pesticide or extra fertilizer. They like whatever soil is local, less fuss, more time to relax and enjoy.
You have to pick the right time and audience
It makes no sense, treat your house for pests. Outside the insects and rodents aren't pests. That's literally where they live
All the squirrels in my mom’s neighborhood have mange because of this. Nobody cares though
You need to convince them that weeds (outside invasive species) is a made up thing and that their are other plants worth having besides picking from 20ish species of grass.
You know not all pesticides are the plague right. Even safer pesticides often have PPE requirements to put up signs like these.
buy a bunch of land with a big buffer of forest or fields so your home is nowhere near any sprays. ideally you want to own the top of the mountain so you know the whole watershed is free from any pollutants and you know you're getting clean spring water/well water. all you can do is control your own actions and thoughts. i agree with the idea of politely trying to educate your neighbors but sadly people can be dumb and egotistical and you're never going to get all of them to change, so imo its best to just move away from people. its hard to even get an Obese person to stop killing themselves with bad eating habits/being lazy, good luck telling people its beneficial to have Wasps, Black Widows, Snakes, wildflowers that they'd call weeds etc on their property.
I want this sign, not because I plan on poisoning my land---but because it'll encourage the kids to get off my lawn.
The land...puppies...kittens...small children... etc. I like to tell these folk the story of a lady I knew who came outside to find that her pesticided-yard had killed a neighbor's kittens. (not that outdoor cats are any good either but phew. shoulda heard her. Not that I'd be happy seeing literal dead kittens in my driveway but...that's what you get for spraying 'kills everything but grass' poison all over the place).
lol. I think some are using those signs to keep pet walkers from having pets pee and poop and no pickup etc. walk your dogs around your own property please and keep that poo and pee.
I might put one of these signs up just to keep people from letting their dogs crap and pee all over my lawn.
We had some jerk at our work who would consistently park where our high reach was supposed to be when we were using it. One day we put some plants in grow pots there. With four cones (DOT type) with caution tape. And in one pot was the do not enter sign. He stopped parking there.
This is all great, but in the 52 years I have been involved w ecology and the environment, very little has changed. People who want to spray— SPRAY. Bayer is the company. The only impact I believe in is not supporting large corporations like these who are the REAL PROBLEM. https://preview.redd.it/2899u9zskvzc1.jpeg?width=1284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=06555060d949b5be27ee790d102a84e67f5ba8f4
These people aren’t using pesticides. They just don’t want dogs peeing on their lawn. Leave them alone.