The more you learn about plants and gardening, the more you will notice all the mistakes other gardeners make. One plant expert on TikTok shared their experience of teaching a neighbor about how bad herbicides can be.
Goodearthdweller (@goodearthdweller) shares her expertise and advice with nearly 90,000 followers.
@goodearthdweller And yes its the same neighbor that killed an entire row of herbs in my garden with it last year. Roundups bad mmmkay.
♬ original sound - jen
In one clip, she explained her encounter with a neighbor — in a humorous way. The video shows her lip-syncing to audio that says: "Yeah, OK. Well, this is gonna hurt like a m***********," referring to how tough the news she was about to deliver would be. The text on the screen reads, "When my neighbor who is obsessed with roundup comes over to ask me why the tree he loves is dying."
She wrote additional information in the caption, saying: "And yes [it's] the same neighbor that killed an entire row of herbs in my garden with it last year. Roundup [is] bad mmmkay."
Roundup is one of the most popular brands of herbicides. In 2015, National Geographic wrote, "It is now used in more than 160 countries, with more than 1.4 billion pounds applied per year."
While Roundup still has a large market share, demand has decreased. The active ingredient in this herbicide is glyphosate, which has been found to have many negative health effects, including being a carcinogen. The brand has also prompted thousands of lawsuits over the years.
According to Agriculture Dive, Bayer, which owns Roundup, is facing significant losses because of decreasing demand. In 2023, the company "lowered its 2023 outlook … due to a 'significant further decline' in sales of glyphosate-based products, including the controversial weedkiller Roundup. … It told investors to expect a loss of 2 billion euros for the second quarter of 2023."
Unfortunately for goodearthdweller's neighbor, "Roundup actually 'penetrates' the entire plant and kills it to the roots. This is great if you are trying to control dandelions, but not so great if you accidentally spray your trees and shrubs with Roundup," Purdue Extension wrote.
Commenters had a lot of empathy for folks who don't understand how detrimental Roundup can be. One person wrote, "My very sweet elderly neighbor couldn't figure out how I was growing melons, but they spray for bugs and hers never got pollinated."
Someone else said, "Poor tree, can it be saved?"
This person is lucky to have an expert gardener living next door to help give advice and perhaps prevent this from happening again.
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