New herbicide kills lawn weeds - and all your trees!

According to a report in the NY Times, DuPont has a winner on their hands with the "environmentally friendly" new commercial herbicide Imprelis. Apparently it kills violets and creeping charlie and some other really, really tough lawn weeds. It also appears to kill shallow rooted landscape trees including conifers. But you know, getting all those obstructions out of the way will make it so much easier to mow your monoculture of grass. According to one landscape/lawn care professional, they made 1000 applications of Imprelis and had 350 complaints about dying trees, and the number is climbing. Apparently the product is implicated in the death of thousands of Norway spruce, eastern white pines, and other trees on golf courses after the use of this herbicide. Now the Phactor's views on the ecology of lawn care are well known, although not followed by enough people, so he cannot condone the use of this product, but he knows from experience that creeping charlie mows really nicely and it grows well in the shade of those trees that you didn't kill. Think about it. Know how long it takes to grow a really big tree? Know how long it takes to kill it? Better to learn to live with creeping charlie. Now this also says a thing or two about the dummies at DuPont who must have never tested their product on anything but turf because how else do you end up marketing a product as environmentally friendly if it kills trees!