Hi all....
Should start by saying I'm new to gardening and new to Dave's....so could use some advice. As you can see from the pic, something is happening to my Lilly of the Valley? Anyone know what???...and why??? I've had losts of caterpillars eating my other flowers, but this doesn't appear to be the same thing...at least I still have leaves! Is this some sort of virus or fungus ...and is there some way to fix it???
Any advice would be most welcome!
stimmins
It looks like some sort of bacterial or fungal infection. You could spray with a fungicide but it won't clear up infected leaves... it will however, keep it from spreading.
Thanks, poppysue...any how idea what causes bacterial or fungal infection??? Are there preventative measures I can be taking? Guess I'll have to investigate what fungicide I can use.
Bacteria and/or fungal problems are typically either soil-borne or air-borne.
Bacteria and fungi live in the soil; many of which are harmless or even beneficial. But when the "bad guys" get splashed up onto foliage by rain or watering, they can cause rot.
Airborne problems need three conditions to spring into action: temperature, moisture and the proper host plant. If the leaves stay dry (no rain, low humidity) and the temperatures aren't warm enough, they'll remain dormant (and pretty much unnoticed/undetectable by the unsuspecting gardener.) Once their ideal conditions are in place, they become active and problems become evident. There's not much you can do to prevent airborne problems, other than to make sure the plant is maintained at peak health - plenty of moisture, well-draining soil, good nutrients, good air circulation and correct sun/shade for the plant's individual needs. Plants that are stressed or weakened by less-than-ideal conditions typically suffer the worst from problems when they arise.
Once a problem presents itself, quick action is best - ignoring it,or hoping it'll go away is a bad idea ;o)
Terry: Wow, that was fast! Thanks SO VERY MUCH for sharing your knowledge! Is there a way to determine if this fungus is soil-borne as opposed to air-borne? Can this fungus also spread to the other plants, or will it just continue to rot the remainder of the plant if I don't get fungicide on it? I take it this is my 'host' plant, yes? (Sheesh...can you tell I'm new to gardening!? :-) When a fungus is 'soil-borne' does it restrict itself to one area of the soil, or does that mean that it's spreading throughout all the soil in the garden? Hope that isn't too dumb a question! :-)l
stimmins, I'm definitely not a scientist, so we're about to reach maximum depth level of my knowledge ;o)
For certain plants, soil-borne diseases are a real problem. That's why most gardeners adhere to a "rotation schedule" for their vegetables. Those in the Solanaceae (potato, tomato, pepper) family all are susceptible to the same diseases. If you practice a three-year rotation where a plant in this family is planted in the area once every 3-4 years, the soil-borne diseases are less of a problem (they don't build up year after year.) There are other reasons to rotate crops, but that's typically the one most mentioned.
Another example are Azaleas - if you have to remove diseased/dead plants, you shouldn't re-plant more Azaleas in the same area, as the soil-borne bacteria will simply attack and kill the new plants, too.
There are numerous "organic" and non-organic products you can use to treat bacterial and fungal problems. It's important to know which you have so you can get a product that will work on your problem. Many of these involve "drenching" the soil and avoid having to move, remove or replace plants in a specific area.
stimmins, my lily of the valley have looked like that in fall for as long as I've had them, and the plants return every spring in ever-increasing numbers. So hopefully you won't lose any of your plants while you search for a solution....
Mine grow in fairly heavy shade with poor air circulation (lots of overhanging shrub branches and hosta leaves etc) which might account for why my lily of the valley have the spotty leaves. Perhaps a spray of Neem would help?
Eileen
Hi, our lilies of the valley, as well as other gardeners' in our area, have been behaving like yours for as long as we've grown them, too. I thought it was a normal summer dormancy similar to that of oriental poppies and bleeding hearts, although perhaps it could be explained by bacterial/fungal infection as well. At any rate, all of these come back strong in the spring, then decline in summer when we mask their distressed leaves with better looking leaves of other plants till frost. What we have come up with are accidental successes: lily of valley among astilbe chinensis pumila (a creeping, drought tolerant variety); a maroon-red leaved heuchera in front of the poppy with dahlia growing over it (I'd love to see summer foliage of poppy masked with Helianthus angustifolia - it has huge constellations of delicate, small yellow daisies with narrow, willow-like leaves on a monster-sized plant); and the bleeding heart comes up through a periwinkle/sweet woodruff blanketed hillside along with low evergreens like sarcococca and juniper that look like green waterfalls as they follow the contours of the hill. It's very humid and overhung with large trees here, so as you can imagine, this technique has resulted in quite a few plant corpses; however, this buckshot method of trial and error has enabled us to discover which plants will save us maintenance time by functioning as "living mulch". I hope I haven't blathered along too much, here, but dreaming up plant associations is a great way to get through winter or commuting in grid-lock or soforth.
Are you kidding? These sorts of descriptions are wonderful. I could almost see your hillside, except I have to look up a picture of the helianthus. I have a few shady spots with the usual hosta/lily of the valley combos, interspersed with sweet woodruff (love it) and pulmonaria and astilbe (but not the one you describe). Now I can "trial" with less "error".
Eileen
I agree, this time of the year mine always look like this(z5). I think they are going dormant. They should be fine in the spring. "No worries" They will be fine!
Bonnie
Hi guys, I hope you'll forgive a little more blathering from my quarter. One of you e-mailed me about being some day able to "instantly picture...countless flowers", and I thought I would share how I became able to do it:
Remembering to back when I didn't know a tulip poplar from a tulip bulb - I was newly married with a "handiman's special" with which we could not afford to do much. So I headed out into the yard with a shovel and a memory of my grandmother's garden in Massachusetts. I only saw it the summer I turned 3 before some troubles hit our family. So gardening, via "idiot sticks" (shovel/pick ax, etc.) became a sort of metaphorical resurrection of a "phoenix rising from ashes" on parallel levels.
Here's how I learned to match a mental picture of a plant with its name: You need a pair of rust buckets masquerading as furnace and pump in the cellar that, through years of duct tape and rubber bands have become twins in function. They know how to do only one thing: break down. So, there you are, marooned day-after-day waiting for the repair/service person with nothing to do in December but go through the classified sections of the magazines "Horticulture" and "Organic Gardening" and write to all the seed and plant catalogs. Come February, snuggled up to a portable heater after work buried under piles of blankets near the only working lightbulb in your fixer-upper after work, a winter storm rattling the panes near a cup of tea, you moon over those catalogs - with pen and paper making lists and doodling designs. Dreaming will make those images stick to their names like flypaper. It will be an act of magic. Science will follow. A great thing about gardening is the interchangeability of magic and science.
Eventually, we gutted and insulated our hovel and installed a wood stove by which I spent many winter nights after work reading authors whose prose mesmerizes while subtly inserting facts into your brain, unbeknownst to your conscious self: Henry Mitchell, Vita Sackville-West, Russell Page, Stephen Lacey, Gertrude Jekyll - there are many more. For Canadians, Harrowsmith's Patrick Lima wrote a scrumptious book chronicalling his garden, and Passionate Gardening by Lauren Springer and Rob Proctor, out of Denver, might be especially appropo, but all these books are a great mix of laughter, tears, vision and facts, whose ideas, to me, are sufficiently universal that they can be translated horticulturally to fit the conditions of many different sites.
Happy gardening, Stimmins
bluespiral....Well, you may think of it as 'blathering'....but I, for one, am thoroughly enjoying reading your written words! WOW!...and thanks!
Sharron
bluespiral, I love your posts but they are very hard to read. Could you please make more and shorter paragraphs?
Hi Darius, thank you for your feedback. i just became a paying member two Sundays ago and I see what you mean -- I'm writing like one of those teutonic authors that only use a period every five pages. Hopefully, practice will approximate perfect. lol
bluespiral, glad you took my comment in stride with no ill effects. I'm just old with tired eyes and long posts often get skipped if there is not enough white space.
Welcome to DG. I used to live near your neck of the woods, more or less. (MD)
Darius, thank you. It's changed so much here since the '70's. Meadows, fields, big and little woods, cornfields -- all under McMansion Orchards and asphalt and more commercial strips with "Space for Lease" signs peppering their useless facades.
For the most part, only the very affluent can afford their own home around here, now. DH and I are dinosaurs from another era. Real estate speculation has gone crazy in our neck of the woods. I hope you are living in a gentler place.
That I am, although no less expensive! Prices here for very modest housing, no view and no land, is more than what my waterfront house on the Severn was worth.
Real Estate speculation is driving a lot of us dinosauers out no matter where we are, or at least keeping us out of new markets.
Hi there bluespiral! It's nice to meet another gardener from my "neck of the woods"! :~)
Sorry stimmins, didn't mean to highjack your thread.
Darius and Shirley1md, please ta meetchya.
Stimmins, apologies for highjacking, too. It appears my staying-on-the-subject skills have a tendency to go dormant like lily-of-the-valley roots. lol
hi folks.....no apologies required! :-)
Sharron
