![]() Some options include products that contain neem oil, sulfur or potassium bicarbonate. ![]() If it is a late-season bloomer that you’re set on keeping, then remove the worst stems and apply an environmentally friendly product to the rest of the plant as soon as you notice the powdery mildew. If your bee balm has succumbed and is beyond repair, then cut the foliage back you will get a new flush of foliage but no more flowers for the rest of the season. When powdery mildew strikes your peonies late in the season, you can just cut back once the leaves get unsightly. If your favorite perennials do get attacked, you have several options. Powdery mildew is often more unsightly than dangerous to the plant, unless it takes hold to the extent of destroying all its leaves or new growth. If you care too much for your herbs, you will only end up with powdery mildew and rotting leaves. Most people kill their herbs with kindness by over-watering and over-fertilizing them. The rule of thumb with most herbs is the more you neglect them the better they grow. In the herb garden, the gardener needs to use a particularly light hand. Follow the maxim “the right plant for the right place.” A healthy plant is always more resistant to disease problems.Choose disease-resistant cultivars whenever possible.Using high nitrogen fertilizers (the first number of three on fertilizer labels) promotes weak, leafy growth try a balanced fertilizer with low numbers and apply only once in the spring to give perennials a boost for the season. ![]() During the winter the fungus survives on plant debris, so it is important to clean up around infected plants.Do not overcrowd your plants this will lead to poor air circulation and will create problems with the humidity level around susceptible plants.Not surprisingly, good maintenance practices and smart gardening is the key to healthy plants. Downy mildew grows primarily on the undersides of leaves and in more classic wet, cool, fungal disease conditions. ![]() Powdery mildew can be differentiated from downy mildew, another fungal disease that presents a fuzzy, white growth, by the position of the white coating and the growing environment. The disease is spread when spores are blown from one plant to the next in cooler, dryer weather and flourishes when some warm humidity is added to the picture. The fungal spores themselves are unusually rich in moisture so, unlike many fungal problems that need moist conditions to take hold, powdery mildew thrives with warmth (temperatures around 70 to 80 F), some humidity and shade. Powdery mildew tends to create a problem for gardeners in middle to late summer, reducing the strength and damaging the appearance of infected plants, but rarely killing them. The cause is a group of related fungi that each attack a limited number of closely related plants. Powdery mildew is a fungal disease that leaves a superficial, white, dusty coating on leaves, stems and sometimes the flowers and fruit of a wide variety of plants. Never-the-less, two particularly troublesome diseases, powdery mildew and late blight, do not follow the classic, wet, early-spring pattern. Powdery mildew photo courtesy of Flickr cc/Scot Nelsonįungal disease is generally most active and aggressive under cooler, damp conditions that favor the vitality of fungal spores. ![]()
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