I planted this Lungwort in the spring and it grew into a beautiful and full leaf plant over the summer. Now, the last few weeks, look at it!!!! What happened? What do I do? It looks like something is taking holes out of the leaves, there are a bunch of brown leaves and others are curling and unhealthy looking.
Close up photo of eaten leaves!
Are there slugs or snails around? Unless you go out at night you won't usually see them, but you might find their slimy trails in the area. That would explain the holes, but for the browning leaves on the bottom it might be fungal--if you've had a lot of rain lately, or if you water in the evenings or use overhead watering that splashes some water back up on to those lower leaves that can happen. (I'll also add that I've never grown these so I don't know what sort of pests/diseases they typically get)
Thanks for your feedback, ecrane. We haven't had any rain. Maybe it's dried out. I'm thinking of cutting off all the leaves and letting it grow back whenever.
I wanted to add this photo to my last post but I couldn't so here is a new post with photo of the Lungwort today.
Hi pentasbutterfly:
I have a ton of lungwort, and my experience is that they crap out twice a year. They look much like your pics at the end of flowering, when I hack down to the new growth at the base. In about two weeks they look gorgeous. Then by the end of summer, especially a dry one like we've had this year, they look horrible again, usually because of the dry conditions. They're pretty resilient creatures, though. I dug up several on a humid, 90+ day and threw the clumps with soil to the side and just left them there from exhaustion. I watered the whole area for a couple of weeks, mostly for the tree that I had just planted, but those lungworts are still sitting above the soil, and very happy! I would leave them for now, since they're still collecting energy. If you can stand it, wait until very early spring to clear them for new growth.
