Cardinal Flowers

Watch Reply
More
Mark unread Print Skip to new
caligrl1958 Champaign, IL May 29, 2007

Hi, I have three cardinal flower plants I planted last summer, that are coming up really nicely. One of them has brownish red spots on its leaves, although it doesn't seem to hurt its growth spurt. Is this some sort of mildew? I can't rub it off. It doesn't seem to be affecting the other two plants as of yet. Any one have any ideas about what it is and what I should do? Thanks! (BTW, I'm zone 5, east central Illinois).

Post #3549966
Quote
Marshmellow Fitchburg, MA May 31, 2007

Sure sounds like rust. You can click here to see images of rust to make sure http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=plant+rust&gbv=2 which is a type of fungus.

If it is Rust, rust generally is very specific to what plant it will infect so it's unlikely to spread to any of your other plants besides your other cardinal flowers. To reduce the chance of fungus infections in general, not sure if it applies to rust avoid watering them from above, keep the leaves dry.

Get yourself some fungicide, the natural fungicides use sulfur which is toxic to the proteins in fungus. Unfortunately if it is rust you should particularly spray underneath the leaves which is not easy and remove heavily infested leaves, rust forms postules on the bottom of the leaves that produce millions of rust spores. You can read about rust here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rust_%28fungus%29

This message was edited May 31, 2007 12:04 PM

Post #3557464
Quote

Post a Reply to this Thread

Please or sign up to post.
Back to Forum Homepage

More Beginner Gardening Threads

Go to all Beginner Gardening threads
BACK TO TOP