Question
Hi.  I moved into this house last July where my sister and her husband lived.  The lawn was in terrible shape the year before so my brother-in-law put down 4 containers of this weed killer before he read that he only needed one container(jug type container btw|) and that this stuff lasts for seven years and it killed the weeds and most of the grass and any new grass.  This past July-August I started to notice that the leaves on the little tree next to my balcony looked like they were splashed with white paint.  Then various species of weeds did the same thing and some of our oak and ash trees were having it to on the outer most branches.  And last about mid August-September my neighbors perenial garden did the same.  Is this a direct result of the chemical in the soil?  I want to bring this garden and back yard(front yard too) back to life.  Please help

Answer
Mandy:
I am not a weed killer expert, but did visit with a colleague on the following explanation.  Your description of white leaves on various plants may indicate an improper application of a some type of a weed killer (herbicide). This may have got into the ground water and was taken up by neighboring plants and resulted in the foliage becoming white. In the agricultural (row crop)community, there are at least two materials that could do this.  One goes by the name of COMMAND and has the chemical called Clomazone in it. The other is called ZORIAL.  I am not sure these two are used on lawn grasses.  I would highly suggest that you contact your local county Extension office to run this by them and discuss a solution to remove this stuff from the soil.  I suspect that time may be the only cure- allowing it to leach out of the soil. You can find the telephone number in your phone book in the county govt. section.  If you need help finding this number, let me know your county and state and I may be able to help.

Steve