Texas Gardening: Has this happened to you?, 1 by vossner

vossner wrote:
I decided I was truly aggravated about this event so I decided to do some research. You know, INFORMATION IS POWER.

I am no botanist, but with enough reading I have learned that certain CMs are subject to a fungus, a kind a leaf blight, which can result from poor drainage, nearby sick plants, excessive rains/humidity, transfer from sick plants by insects, overfertilization. For the most part, removal is recommended. However, recommendations for commercial growers is the removal of all the sick branches and an application of fungicide for the remainder of the plant. One organic fungicide mentioned was neem.

This blight typically occurs in summer, with high rains and humidity (like we've had in houston in the last two weeks). Mild winters like we've had, with no decrease in insect population, aggravates the problem. Doesn't necessarily occur every year, but it is certainly a problem on some varieties. Interestingly, Peppermint Lace was not listed as one of the problem ones, but maybe this research wasn't complete and this dang variety needs to be added to this list.

Anyway, I think before I throw my arms up in the air, I'm gonna do a little experimenting. It is too late now, but tomorrow I'm going to cut my tree and apply neem. The tree is definitely not dead, it just looks dead. I scraped with my nails and there was plenty of nice green cambdium (sp?). Let's see if it starts growing again. I will post my progress here.

Here are some pictures. This one shows the 3 trees. the one on the right is the problem one.