Oh dear God no

Ok so a small story for you all.

First let's meet the players.

Me – I'm a lawn contractor in Western Australia. By law I cannot spray herbicide or pesticide without a licence so my job is to cut, that's it. This is done on a rotating schedule. Most clients are two weekly in summer, three weekly in winter. Rain interferes with cutting so if the lawn's really wet, I won't be there this cut. It's currently winter.

The client – let's call her "Jill". An elderly lady, she lives on an old quarter acre block in her family home. Her husband loved his tennis, while he was alive the back yard was a full size tennis court. It's still there but wasn't kept up. I started looking after it about a year ago and it was quite long so I've been cutting progressively shorter and encouraging her to vertimow in spring to get rid of the growth. Due to recent rain, I haven't been out to Jill's for about 6 weeks.

The lawn – As I said it was a tennis court. It started life as a Couch (Bermuda) lawn, but has been invaded over the last few years by Buffalo and Zoysia. It's long enough that it bogs down the mower.

So there was some rain this morning but it blew over by lunch so I managed to get out. When I got there I was greeted by a rather large patch of yellowish-brown. Hmm. That wasn't there last time I was here. I recognise that colour. This isn't good. I stood there for a minute staring at it and screaming inside, then Jill came out.

I looked at her, she looked at me. I looked at the lawn, she looked at the lawn. I looked at her, she looked at me. The conversation went something like this :

Jill : "I think I might have overdone it a little maybe?"

Me : "What did you spray it with, Roundup?"

Jill : "Oh no no, nothing like that."

Me : "Do you have the bottle?"

Jill : Hang on I'll grab the keys to the shed." grabs keys and we're walking "it's some sort of stuff that'll just kill the Kikuyu. I hate that stuff. Here you go."

Me : Looks at bottle. Internal screaming intensifies. The label reads 'Active ingredient Glyphosate 360 g/L' "Jill, this is…Roundup"

Jill : "Oh dear. The label said not to spray when it was raining, and it rained a few hours after so I did it again. Then it was starting to go brown so I did it again. Do you think it might have been that third time that did it?"

Me : "…"

Me : "…"

Me : "Gotta be honest, you've kinda killed it."

Jill : "Will it come back?"

Me : "…" From death? Right.

Me : "Look the good news is Couch will outlast religion, so there's a chance that it'll spread from those little green bits that still exist."

Jill : "Will it help if I vertimow just that bit?"

Me : "…I need to go cut the lawn now."

Attached are some photos. Three from today, and one from April.