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After reading about how nursery plants are soaked in pesticides on Friends of the Earth site foe.org, I wrote asking some questions. Maybe some of you here could help? I’m not sure where to look to find the answers, so even directing me to a site would be helpful!

Here’s what happened:

We had thousands of bees visiting our yard in Tucson, AZ. Most of these bees live in the ground. A couple of years ago when the city dug up the alley, the bee population was immediately reduced to just a few hundred bees. Now this year there are only about TWELVE BEES!

More might come, but these bees were counted when our citrus trees were in bloom – Bees used to swarm our two trees every year!

I read recently that nursery plants are practically drowned in pesticides. I am an idiot and didn’t know this before, and thought all of my organic gardening habits for the last 8 years were helping, but I have planted stuff from nurseries.

Questions:

Could my plants be killing bees?

I recently bought plants from a nursery, should I dig them up and get rid of them?

What about the plants from years ago, are they still poisoning wildlife?

Are their seeds poisonous?

Are plants that have grown from those seeds poisonous?

What about the dirt? Is the dirt from the seedlings I bought poisoning the ground? (We also have toads that spend about 11 months out of the year hibernating underground.)

Do I need to dig up the dirt and get rid of it?

Is the groundwater and the whole area that was watered around these plants poisoned?

Seriously, if you could direct me ANYWHERE or have ANY answers, I would be extremely appreciative. I did notice this in the comment section, “The neonics get into the soil and dust goes into the field margins. All that operation pollinator will do is attract pollinators to high toxic crops and margins. The half life of some neonics exceeds the 120 days set by the EU. Even Bayer admit imidicloprid has a half life of 288 days, IF you remove the toxic agricultural waste product (formaly known as stubble) from the field.”
It makes me think I *should* dig up the recently plants, but I’m not sure what pesticides are doused on nursery plants.

Thanks for ANY help,

DD