I had the pleasure of speaking to a great group of gardeners at the 老澳门六合彩开奖记录资料 Senior's Center the other day. Our topic was great plant picks for the garden.
With the help of Cheryl from the Village Green Garden Centre, I was loaded up with a delectable display of perennials and small shrubs and it was a welcome reminder that there is still plenty of great plant material out there so keep on planting.
The amount of experience and gardening knowledge in the room was huge. Truth be told, I was a little intimidated.
The questions were keeping me on my toes and a few dedicated individuals even brought some samples of diseased plant material to diagnose.
One couple brought in the diseased leaves of their specimen Lilac tree (Syringa). Some of the new shoots and young leaves were turning brown, and they had observed the tree budding out and then seeing the buds die before they opened to flower.
In Coastal B. C. bacterial blight is very common on a wide range of woody plants including flowering cherries, lilacs, Japanese maples, roses and forsythia.
These are generally referred to as Pseudomonas. Pseudomonas on shrubs usually cause dead buds, wilted and blackened shoots and sometimes, shot hole of leaves in April, May and June.
It is difficult to control and unfortunately occurs in very wet springs. Sound familiar? Bacteria is widespread in our environment and difficult to control.
Every time the rain splashes on diseased leaves it travels to the soil and other parts of the plants.
Pruning out the blighted shoots and using a copper spray are the only control measures available. Remember to sterilize your secateurs after you make cuts on a blighted tree or shrub so as not to spread the disease to your healthy plant material.
Copper sprays are applied in the spring and should be mixed at a very low concentration to avoid shoot damage. You can also do an application in the fall.
As always, be very careful when using something like copper spray and only mix enough solution to use for one application.
Younger shrubs are more susceptible to bacterial blight, and sometimes you will find highly cultivated varieties are more prone to this as well.
Older shrubs are more established and will not usually be damaged seriously. You will generally see a bloom reduction in very wet springs on the Coast.
When you cut away infected material try and burn it. Do not put the diseased material in your compost.
Generally you can get blight under control fairly easily. The first step is identifying the problem and then acting on it.
You can also look for varieties that are less blight resistant.
