Pesticide treatment on my native patch
I’ve been gardening for family (in RI 7a) where they had, unbeknownst to me, pest control visit while I was gone, and treated the property with bifenthrin and an oil-based “eco” pesticide they say deters mosquitoes and ticks. I came home to find granules all over the plants and some burn marks in the leaves. I am fairly beside myself- I’ve been adding natives to the property and I fear this is a death trap for insects. No one was getting ticks from a tended patch of monarda and rudbeckia and if they were it would have been me. (And they treated the potted tomatoes to boot- come on). Is there any way to counteract this? I’m going to try to rinse my plantings but it’s just going to go into the soil. I am grieving the life I had tried to attract… and I do not want to be gardening with bifenthrin on my body. Any thoughts about what to do here to mitigate the damage?
Posted Jul 11, 2026, 1:09 PM UTC