Garden Help Desk: Answers for damaged gardens, lawns

Courtesy Meredith Seaver, USU Extension

There was very heavy hail and wind in my neighborhood yesterday and most of my garden looks like it’s ruined. The leaves on my squash plants are either torn up or broken off and a lot of my pole beans were knocked to the ground. I’m trying to decide whether to just pull everything out and hope for better luck next year. What are the chances any of my plants will recover and continue to produce for me?

I suspect you have plenty of company. My own garden took a real beating in the storms and looked pretty sad the next morning. Take heart, though. The chances of recovery in both our vegetable gardens are actually very good. The leaves are tattered and the fruits are pitted, but the plants themselves are all probably fine. We should see some healthy new growth in just a day or two and have home-grown produce to harvest again soon.

For now, continue to give your garden good care by watering deeply but not frequently. Remove debris and damaged leaves as they die and look forward to a continued harvest.

I am hoping you can provide some guidance on dealing with a devastating mistake I made by accidentally applying the wrong treatment to our lawn, which had done well for nearly 40 years. Over the past several years our lawn has been plagued more and more by spurge. About a week and a half ago I refilled the sprayer I use for lawn weeds because it was empty. After two days I knew something was wrong as pretty much the whole of the lawn was dying. Since I knew where I had put the bottle I used, I went back into the shed, and, sure enough, I had instead mixed and used the treatment I use for an extended rock driveway that we have. It’s not only a “total vegetation” control but is supposed to keep things weed free for up to a year. Active ingredients: Glyphosate isopropylamine salt and Imazapyr isopropylamine salt.

I am just sick over this, and hoping for suggestions of what steps we should take next – reseed and fertilize, tear out the old lawn and re-sod? Replace the old soil? Where should we go from here?

Courtesy Meredith Seaver, USU Extension

As you know, the damage can’t be undone. My usual advice for anyone using any kind of pesticide is to read the label not only when you purchase the product, and not only when you use it the first time, but to read the label every time you are preparing to use it.

If the only active ingredient had been glyphosate, you could have started your soil preparation and done your reseeding just a few days after spraying because glyphosate degrades quickly and doesn’t have residual activity in the soil. Unfortunately, you can expect the ingredient Imazapyr isopropylamine salt to be active in the soil for one year. Its job is to prevent plants from growing, and that’s what it will do.

Trying to remove the affected soil would be impractical, expensive and, most likely, not effective. The treated area would most likely remain unsafe for sod or seed for a while. You can test for this by occasionally planting some inexpensive indicator plants in a few areas of the yard. You can try transplants like tomatoes, if you can find them, or seeds like beans or lettuce.

Do you have any trees in the area? There may be some damage to the trees if there was enough downward movement of the chemical in the soil. Only time will tell. Any trees in the area will still need to be watered. A once-every-week-or-two deep soak should be adequate.

You may find that you have muddy areas in the yard this coming winter and spring as the dead grass breaks down. You can manage that with a thick layer of compost, which you can simply turn under once you’re ready to replant.

Courtesy Meredith Seaver, USU Extension

While you wait for the chemical to break down, you could use your time to consider reducing the amount of lawn in your landscape. There are lots of nice trees, shrubs and perennials that you could incorporate into shrub beds where lawn used to grow. This is also an opportunity to make improvements to your irrigation design. Irrigation technology and best watering practices have advanced significantly in the last few decades, and you can take advantage of all that progress without having to worry about your lawn.

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