Question
Hydrangea
I have 2 hydrangea's.We live in Ga.. Every year something starts eating on the leaves. I would like to get ahead of whatever is doing it this year and ward it off if possible. Thank you!
AnswerHi Kaci:
The spots in your photo may be an indication of a plant disease rather than something literally chewing on the leaves of your plant. If this is a fungus leaf spot, you are very smart to want to get "ahead" of it this year before it gets worse. Did you have it last year? If so, give the plant a good cleaning- by that, remove any dead stems and any dead leaves remaining on the plant or ground from last year. The fungus that causes this spot can easily survive the winter on dead hydrangea leaves and stems. If there are presently only a few leaves that are spotted, you can remove them also. Discard all of this debris in bags and sit on the curb for the garbage collector. Do this cleanup when leaves are dry and no rain is expected for a day or two.
I have prepared a bulletin about his disease. You can find it at the web address---- http://www.uaex.edu/Other_Areas/publications/PDF/FSA-7570.pdf
You will need to have a free program called Adobe Reader installed on your computer to read and print. Let me know if you have any additional questions.
Good to hear from you. We don't get this disease here until later in the year OR unless we have a lot of rain!!
Regards
Steve
