Plant Doctor Archive

Spray drift

MY husband sprayed weeds around our garden with Zero and some got on our penstemons. Will they live?

FROM your photo it looks as if there are still plenty of green leaves on the plant, so it's likely the plant hasn't received enough of the active ingredient glyphosate to kill it. I recommend you cut all the discoloured shoots back to where there are healthy green leaves, even if you have to cut some shoots right back to the ground.

Give the plant a feed with a general fertiliser and a good watering if necessary. At this time of year new growth should quickly appear and you may even get some flowers in autumn.

Reproduced with permission from the former Weekend Gardener magazine. The views expressed here are not necessarily those of the RNZIH.