Question
QUESTION: Dear Long Island Gardner,

I don't know if you will remember my recent question but it went something like this:

"What type of herbicide would work to eradicate large patches of broadleaf plantain from my lawn? A week ago I used Scott's Weed and Feed but it seems to have had no effect on this particular weed (though it killed others). Should I just be patient with the Weed and Feed or seek an alternative?"

Anyway you responded by slurring Scott's and "educating" me about the negative effects of chemical lawn products etc. Though I have no personal affections for Scott's products and I do appreciate your stance concerning an environmentally minded approach to lawn and garden maintenance (and would like to learn more), I found your answer somewhat condescending and uninformative. I feel that instead of providing me with an answer that might aid me, and also enlighten me as to alternative and organic methods of dealing with my lawn's weed issue, you declined to answer (though you actually ended up writing an entire paragraph). You eluded to solutions by stating, "there are perfectly good ways to get rid of Weeds without using them [weed killers]." But you failed to provide me with any constructive examples. Instead, you ended your "non-reply" with, what I interpret as self-indulgent wit, "My favorite:  Pull them out" which is not really an option considering I have about a 1/4 acre of said weeds. I had hoped for more help than this from an "Expert."


ANSWER: Frank, I'm a volunteer here.  None of this is self indulgent.  It's free for you.  No one pays me to sit here and answer your questions.  We both know that.  That's the facts.  Calm down.  At the end here, you get the last laugh: You can trash me up and down and give me a bunch of '1's to wreck my rating.  How's that for revenge?  Rate away.  And you STILL got plenty of free information from me.

But Frank, if you are looking for an herbicide, there is NO answer I can give you that will make you happy.

I hate to point this out, but 'Pull them out' is exactly people used to handle Weeds, before the Scotts Companies (which owns most of the business - look at the market share) began to brainwash people like you.

Pull them out?

That's what I do.  I get down on my hands and knees every day (weather allowing) and I pull out Poa annua and other Weeds that sneak in and grow. Frank, I LIKE to do that!  I LOVE Weeding my Lawn.  It's relaxing and, as I've said many times, I love to 'get up close and personal with my Lawn'.  Self indulgent wit?  I wasn't joking.  This may not be your cup of tea, but it is definitely, absolutely mine.  That's OK - but why get upset about it?  Was it the word 'Reject' that hit a nerve?  I take it back.  I won't do it again.  Not for you, anyway.  I reject a LOT of questions for a LOT of reasons.  Maybe I'm hurting people's feelings by doing that.  I thought including an explanation would fix that.  Nope.

Now, let's look at my 'slurring' of Scotts.

Frank, you make it sound like there was some minority politician giving a speech and I uttered a racial 'SLUR'.

That's what SLURRING is.  You can't SLUR Scotts. Impossible!  They're out there doing all this damage.  Have you spent any time shooting off a letter to THEM about THAT?

Scotts spends a ton of money giving you a lot of ideas that are bad for YOU, good for THEM.  The company is out to make money.  There is NOTHING wrong with that.  If someone sells water out of the tap for $2 a bottle, and people will buy it, it's a free country, and at least one company we know does that.  It doesn't mean you and I have to buy it, too.  If I criticize the water company for doing it, does that mean I am SLURRING the water company?  C'mon, Frank.

Now, I apologize if I came across as condescending.  Uninformative?  That hurts.  I try to inform, even when I reject a question.  I have no idea what I told you (there's no record of my rejects but I usually work hard to inform because otherwise I am completely wasting my time) but I must have said something, because you said I wrote a paragraph.  Consider any of the SLURRING of Scotts to be informative, please.

But MOST OF THE COUNTRY is Scott's customers, Frank.  MOST.  You know how many people that is?  That corporation has dipped its toe in the non-chemicals business, but their real push is still aimed at taking over the world with their earth-hostile merchandise.  I think of the people in Africa who can't grow crops, and instead of building up their Soil and developing their farmlands, we are shipping chemical fertilizers and pesticides over to them.  Down in South America, where they grow Roses for the U.S. Valentine's Day market, poor people die from exposure to pesticides purchased from Scotts and Monsanto.  Slurring Scotts is the LEAST I can do.

I could be wrong - feel free to correct me, Frank, if I'm wrong here, I LOVE to be wrong - but to me, you sound like a person who is ready to tackle, very ambitiously, a less-than-perfect Lawn troubled by (and you have researched this) Broadleaf Plantain.  Large patches of said Weed SHOULD be yanked out -- by hand, Frank, with a shovel, or by someone hired to yank them out by the drift and patch.  But you will get 20 people telling you to go out the buy Round-Up and spray it all over the B.P..  I KNOW I can't change the mind of someone like you who chooses herbicides so casually.  You thought I was kidding about the hand weeding.  You WOULD NEVER take my answer seriously.

But I must have given you a LITTLE information.  Because if you know a LITTLE about some of the un-advertised problems you might face ('the negative effects of chemical lawn products etc'), maybe someday you'll start to look at those Scotts commercials as so much baloney.  You don't see that as informative?  Because YOU don't take it seriously.

So Frank, I am sorry I have upset you.  If you lived next door, we could sit down and talk about this over tea and coffee.  In my community (Roslyn, Long Island) there are clusters of Cancer around the local golf courses and country clubs.  A former CIA director who lived in Roslyn Harbor downwind from the local incinerator died of a brain tumor that his wife insists to this day was caused by the unregulated emissions from the Roslyn incinerator pipes. Leukemia, Hodgkins and non-Hodgkins, Pancreatic Cancer, a soaring rate of Autism and this new condition called Asperger's Syndrome -- we have them in small pockets all over Long Island.  I am sure, Frank, that someday, they will pull the plug on whatever herbicide you decided to use to get rid of that Broadleaf Plantain this month.

When you have a little free time, look at the National Coalition for Pesticide-Free Lawns column, '5 Reasons not to use Weed and Feed':

www.beyondpesticides.org/pesticidefreelawns

Frank, Scotts Weed and Feed is one of the highest selling 2,4-D products on the market.  Try having healthy kids and pets now that you have poured this stuff all over your Lawn.

Rate me, please.  Any questions, I'm happy to answer them.

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Dear Long Island Garnder,

Sheesh. If anyone hit a nerve, I think it was me. Yikes! All I was ever asking for originally was an answer or a suggestion. (I stumbled upon this website as the result of a Google search.) But I felt what I received from you instead was an anti-Scott's lecture without any alternatives included. Ultimately I would prefer to find an organic alternative - really! I only used the Scott's product this once, because it was recommended and I was open to suggestions. (I don't believe I was "brainwashed" though.)I've never tended to a lawn before and am somewhat ignorant concerning alternatives. You can bash Scott's all you want, no skin off me.
I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings or dealt a blow to your ego. I really wasn't that worked up with my reply. I wasn't angry, maybe just a bit frustrated. I simply found your original suggestion silly, somewhat condescending, and unhelpful . . . so I told you so.
BTW, I don't mind getting down on my hands and knees and pulling weeds. In fact, that's what I've been doing for the most part. However, I don't feel that pulling broadleaf plantain - with what appear to be deep, strong roots - that are currently making up about 75% of my entire lawn, as an alternative. And seriously, I truly doubt you would either. Yes perhaps, historically, people pulled their weeds (and they also used herbicides as you have mentioned - but let's not go there)but you're talking about a bygone, agrarian society and also a time when people regularly employed servants and personal gardners, etc. I work all day long, I try to manage my time off efficiently, and I'm trying to avoid paying someone to do this for me. It would take me forever-and-a-year to pull all those weeds. And by the time I was done, I'd turn around and they'd all have grown back! Let's be serious! If you are retired or independantly wealthy and can find the time to hand-pick a lot's worth of stubborn weeds - good for you. I just don't have the luxury to do this "everyday" as you claim to do.
So if you'd like to help me out, and give me some ideas (other than hand-picking)I'd appreciate it. If not, I have received some other ideas - including earth-friendly ones - from other sites and individuals and I'll move forward with them, thanks.

Frank

Answer
I can't turn in tonight without answering you at least with a preliminary answer -- and I promise to get a full answer to you this weekend.  Unfortunately it is now past 3 a.m. and I have to get up in 2 1/2 hours for some urgent business.  I appreciate your note and I will give this some thought over the weekend.

It is so frustrating, Frank, when educated, articulate people defend a big bad company like Scotts.  They have great Grass Seed.   They have an 'organic' arm (an old Orchid company they purchased and now sell soil in limited markets to organic people under the brand name, they're testing the waters).  You mentioned servants -- yes, that's what the rich folks did 100 years ago, they sent the servants out to pull up the Weeds.  Prince Charles is STILL doing it.  His Organic Garden in England, I forget the name, is quite incredible, but it works mainly because the guy has all these servants doing WEEDING.  The Thyme Lawns you hear about in England are WEEDED BY HAND.  I can tell you, having weeded by hand for 3 years a small patch of rare Dianthus, it is NO FUN.  I prefer the Weeding of the Lawn to pulling up microscopic alien visitors between tiny blades of Dianthus.  I should have used Fabric Cover for that instead.

Anyway, I will look thru my notes and see if we have a painless way to get rid of your pain in the neck plantain.

Thanks for your note.  I'll be in touch.