4.3 Landscape Application Posting (Rule 40-21-9)

What "landscape" means, and what it is not

Rule 40-21-9 is application posting for landscapes. It is a public-notice rule, not a second copy of the 40-21-5 application record and not a Worker Protection Standard central-posting sheet. Exam items will mix those three pieces of paper. Posting tells people arriving at a treated landscape that a pesticide was applied. The application record is GDA's inspection file. WPS information is for agricultural workers and handlers on an agricultural establishment.

Rule 40-21-9-.01 defines the terms you must not paraphrase loosely. Landscape means any maintained areas of turf, trees, shrubs, or other ornamental plants, indoors or outdoors. The same definition then excludes two huge Georgia work sites: (a) rights-of-way, either public or private, and (b) land areas used for agricultural production or research. A county or Georgia DOT herbicide spray on a roadside right-of-way is not a Rule 40-21-9 landscape posting job, even if the grass looks like a lawn. A peanut field, cotton field, pecan orchard, peach orchard, tobacco allotment, soybean field, or forage pasture used as agricultural production is not landscape. A research plot at a university farm is not landscape. A HOA common-area St. Augustine lawn, a shopping-center shrub bed, a cemetery turf, a sports field, a park, and a mall interiorscape are landscapes.

Commercial application means application of a pesticide by a pesticide contractor or that contractor's employee. Noncommercial application means application by anyone other than a pesticide contractor or that contractor's employee. Public non-residential properties means public or privately owned property operated for public benefit and to which members of the public normally have access, including parks, golf courses, cemeteries, sports fields, landscapes associated with public buildings, and interiorscapes.

Who must post

Rule 40-21-9-.02 applies to all applications of pesticides to landscapes, whether commercial or noncommercial, and whether to residential or nonresidential properties, with the exception of applications made by the homeowner to the landscape at his own single-family residence. That sentence is the whole posting net. A paid lawn-care contractor posts. A city parks employee who is not a contractor still posts when treating park turf. A volunteer HOA board member spraying common-area shrubs still posts. The homeowner spraying the landscape at that homeowner's own single-family residence is the residential exception. A landlord treating a rental duplex is not "the homeowner at his own single-family residence." A homeowner treating the HOA common area down the street is not treating "his own" single-family landscape.

The landscape sign: size, height, timing, and place

At the time of application, the pesticide contractor or other person responsible for the application shall post a sign, not to be removed until the day after the application, at the primary point or points of entry to the treated area. If you spray a Marietta HOA lawn on Monday, the sign goes up Monday when you treat and stays through Tuesday. Pulling the sign when the truck leaves Monday afternoon is a violation even if the spray has dried. "Day after" is not "until dry" and not "until the restricted-entry interval on the agricultural label ends."

For all sites except golf courses, Rule 40-21-9-.02(b) requires all of the following:

1. The sign must be at least 4 inches by 5 inches and made of sturdy, weather-resistant material.
2. The printing shall be in contrasting colors to the background of the sign.
3. The bottom edge of the sign shall be eight (8) to twelve (12) inches above the ground.
4. Wording and format must include the state's specified landscape-posting layout.

The height band is a favorite wrong-answer generator. The bottom edge is 8 to 12 inches above the ground, not knee height, not eye level on a tree, and not flush on the sod. Weather-resistant means the Monday sign still has to be readable Tuesday after a Georgia afternoon storm. Contrasting print means dark on light or light on dark; pencil on brown cardboard fails.

Post at the primary entry or entries to the treated area. A back-corner shrub bed that people enter from a sidewalk needs the sign where those people actually walk in, not only at a locked service gate the public never uses. If there are two primary entries, the rule's "point(s)" language is plural for a reason.

Golf courses use a different sign

Golf is not the 4-by-5 lawn flag. In lieu of the ordinary posting in (a) and (b), golf courses treated with pesticides shall be posted as follows:

1. The sign must be at least 8 inches by 10 inches.
2. Printing shall be in contrasting colors to the background.
3. The sign must be posted at a conspicuous place in the golf shop, in the clubhouse, or at the first tee.
4. Wording and format must include: PESTICIDE APPLICATION NOTICE / PESTICIDES ARE PERIODICALLY APPLIED TO THIS GOLF COURSE / FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION, CONTACT (name and telephone number).

Do not walk every tee with a 4-by-5 lawn sign and call that golf compliance. Do not hide an 8-by-10 card in a maintenance barn. Shop, clubhouse, or first tee, conspicuous, 8 by 10, with that notice language. A cemetery or sports field is not a golf course and stays on the 4-by-5 primary-entry rule.

The written statement you leave behind

Posting the sign does not finish the job. Upon completion of each application, the pesticide contractor or other person responsible shall leave a statement containing five items, at the residence; or in a multi-unit residence, with the property manager; or at a public non-residential property, with the owner, manager, or custodian:

1. Address and specific area or areas treated
2. Name and telephone number of the company
3. Name of the person making the application
4. Complete brand name of the pesticide as it appears on the label
5. Application date

Complete brand name as it appears on the label is the product-identity trap. "Imidacloprid" or "grub control" is not the complete brand name. The statement needs the brand the label actually carries. Specific area treated means "front lawn and oak beds on the north side," not only the street address. Multi-unit buildings go to the property manager, not under a random doormat. Parks, cemeteries, and similar public sites go to the owner, manager, or custodian.

Exemptions (Rule 40-21-9-.03)

Read the two exemption paragraphs as different widths.

No provision of this rule shall apply to applications involving injections of pesticides directly into plants, nor to applications made by the homeowner to the landscape at his single-family residence. Direct plant injections skip the entire posting chapter: no 4-by-5 sign, no golf notice, no written statement under 40-21-9. The homeowner-own-SFR exception is equally broad for that homeowner's own single-family landscape.

No posting shall be required of any plants in interior landscapes which are treated with pesticides two (2) hours or more before the public has normal access to the area in which the plants are treated. That interiorscape paragraph is a posting off-ramp, not a rewrite of "no provision of this rule shall apply." A mall interiorscape treated at 6:00 a.m. when doors open at 9:00 a.m. is at least two hours before normal public access, so posting is not required. Treat at 8:30 a.m. with a 9:00 a.m. opening and the two-hour interiorscape posting exemption does not apply.

Worked Georgia sites

HOA turf, Monday contractor spray. Landscape: yes. Homeowner-own-SFR: no. Post a 4-by-5 weather-resistant sign at the primary entries, bottom edge 8 to 12 inches up, contrasting print. Leave it until Tuesday. Leave the five-item written statement with the property manager if the turf is a multi-unit common area.

Homeowner backyard in a single-family house. The homeowner treats that landscape. Rule 40-21-9 does not apply to that application.

Peanut field custom application. Agricultural production, so it is outside the landscape definition. Do not answer with a 4-by-5 lawn sign. Contractor records under 40-21-5 still apply to the for-hire job; posting under 40-21-9 does not.

County right-of-way. Excluded from landscape. No 40-21-9 lawn sign duty from the landscape definition.

Augusta golf course greens. Use the 8-by-10 periodic-application notice in the shop, clubhouse, or first tee. Leave the written statement with the owner, manager, or custodian as a public non-residential property.

Downtown interiorscape. If treatment ends at least two hours before the public's normal access, posting is not required under Rule 40-21-9-.03(2). Plant injections anywhere skip the entire rule under .03(1).