I had too many of these this year and started to wonder what was causing it when I couldn't get rid of it. I just could not get them to grow normally. I had a huge brug out front and each branch looked like this. I didn't get even 1 flower on it all summer.
Halloween Brug?
Birthdefect?
Too many cousins in the lineage?LOL
Call it Prince Charles
I had one of those, due to a combination of mega broad mite damage and lots of fertilizer. It's about come out of it now and so will yours I'm sure.
Judy
Kell, that plant was normal last year?
Yes Joelle, though this is a seedling. Judy is right, it was due to mites though I am not sure which kind. I have had broad mites in the past and never did my brugs start to grow so abnormally.
In the beginning I thought it was mites and treated them. It did not improve, then I got the Forbid in so I used it and it still didn't improve. I knew all the mites were gone because my other plants immediately recovered and resumed normal growth. We are talking now at least 2 months of no growth but this weird spaghetti leaves.
Kind of neat in a weird way. LOL Almost like what I imagine a witches' broom looks like.
Planning to use it to save on gasoline this halloween? LOL
Hi Kin. Yes it does look like Culebra but the leaves have mite damage and not the rich green of culebra which by the way has never gotten mites in all the time I have had her. Kin, this is way I kept putting off sending you your brugs until I was sure I was bug free even though the brugs I sent you never had mite damage.
And the brugs around this one had minimal mites as you can see how lush the one right next to this sick one is.
LOL Mary! I do not think it will hold me or I might.
Here is a picture of a witches' broom and it does kind of look like it but this is made of leaves not twigs.
I keep getting interrupted. First a walk and then I had to make dinner tonight, not my best thing to do. My husband seems to be on strike. I came in here after I put on home made tomato sauce on the stove to reheat after I spent hours cooking it all day from my tomatoes I grew. And of course I forgot and burned it. So I had to regroup fast and put together another meal. Shoot.
Anyway, finally I decided to force feed them to try to stimulate new leave growth. I actually used grass fertilizer with a whopping nitrogen number and it worked. I fed them a huge handful every week for several weeks and also foliar fed them. And they started to push out new lush growth. The only one I didn't feed was the one in the first picture. It is in the backyard and I never got around to bringing the big bag fertilizer back there. So it looks exactly the same as it did!
But the others are in lush new growth now.
Here is one of my best seedlings from last year that is lush now with new shoot growth but the tips that have the spider growth persist doing little.
Kell,
How far away are you from the Nevada test sites????
Hap
LOL Hap. Lately I have been wondering. So many strange things going on here. But thankfully all with happy endings.
Kell,
What is that beautiful BLUE flower in the background?
It is really PURPLE! LOL. A Tibouchina urvilleana. A fast and easy way to get loads of gaud color all summer right up to frost. I have 4 trees of it and am currently trying to find some obscure varietes of it. They have some that will knock your socks off though this variety is the most widely grown around here, though oddly not very much.
It is beautiful! Will it root easily? I would love to try growing it here...even if I did so as an annual..I do have a couple of nice bushes that are not supposed to come back here theat do very well...I love that purple bloom!
I have never gotten it to root and no one has who have gotten cuttings. When we had the terrible cold spell in the early 1990s, mine died to the ground but did come back. They usually do not even lose their leaves and we do get down to 32 a few nights but not ever for very long.
Kell, you do have some strange things going on in your garden this year.
Most notably me, Linda. LOL
Kell, I'm glad you did take that consideration of not sending the cuttings when you were going through that terrible problem. The cuttings were well worth the wait!!!
:)Thanks
I had problems with Culebra this summer. Treated for mites several times and just couldn't get it to snap out of it's funky growth problems. Well the problem was really simple... Stupid me I was keeping it wet and over watering it. As soon as I let the poor guy dry out between watering it was fine.
That does kinda look like witches broom now that you mention it!
What do you all fertilize with? How often?
Thanks.
