Toxic Dog and Martha's Boxwood's

click on the photo it will enlarge

In August of 1994 we spent two weeks on a family vacation in Washington D.C. taking our two sons to all the museums and historical sights including the White House.  One afternoon we all went to George Washington's famous home, Mt. Vernon.  After touring the home and garden I was pleased to discover that the local women's garden club had taken hundreds of cuttings from the now ancient boxwoods that Martha Washington had planted around her kitchen garden.  They were selling packages of four rooted cuttings as a fund raiser for the upkeep of the gardens.  I purchased them and they shipped them home to us and two survived.  My two historical boxwoods are planted on either side of the brick walkway leading into vegetable and picking gardens which I thought was the appropriate site for them.  They had been in this new location for a year when I started noticing the yellowing leaves on the lower right side of both shrubs.  I sprayed for spider mights thinking this would take care of it, but it only got worse.  That is when I discovered the true culprit.....Popeye, the "Boston Terrier From Hell", or at least his urine is.  That stuff would probably remove varnish.  I now follow him into the garden and hose down the boxwoods every time he annoints them.  Dogs have no respect for history.