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Garden in distress - Please help

Hi all,

i am am an amateur there who inherited a garden with the house I bought - was already in distress - I brought it back to life over the last year, but now seems to be in distress again with infestation or disease which I need your help to identify. 

I thjnk the main main plant here is from the prunus family - see photos - about 20 of the same plant. I pruned these last summer and they were still all dried up from previous neglect. This season they came back to life and one of them even was flowering (long bush of small white flowers). Now here is the list of issues I see. I think these might be more than one issue

1) Full branches turning brown all of a sudden (flowering one)
2) Brown holes in all the leaves. Sometimes just holes
3) All new leaves are turning brown from the sides
4) Some of the thick trunks are green instead of brown
5) Just one of the 20 plants have a bush of leaves which have white residue on it

Rose - I also have 2 rose bushes which seem to be catching the same or a new issue - last three pictures are the rose
1) One full branch is turning brown
2) brown spots on leaves which have not turned brown already
3) Small black fly on the top of the flowers

i tried reading up about this and it does not seem like the canker as there is no ozzing sticky liquid from the trunks or the branches

please please help

Devesh


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Posts

  • bullfinchbullfinch Posts: 692
    Oh dear, they are looking very sad. The ones in the first few pictures look a bit like laurel, but hopefully someone else will be able to identify them. Do you think they could have been accidentally sprayed with weedkiller- perhaps drifted in a breeze? 
    Perhaps someone else will have some ideas?
  • BorderlineBorderline Posts: 4,700
    edited May 2019
    Bullfinch's diagnosis seems very possible. Since you say you inherited these shrubs, there is no way of knowing how they had been planted or treated previously. Do you have any over hanging trees that shade out your borders? Sometimes, young shrubs do not establish well under a strong canopy of trees. 

    I recommend you prune all the Cherry Laurels back quite hard. This way, you limit any spread of any disease like shot-hole infection lingering in the leaf and branches. Thoroughly clean your blades. Remove all fallen leaves promptly.

    The roses also need to be pruned back to branches where there is healthy growth. Again, promptly remove fallen leaves around its base. If the area is quite shaded, your rose may not thrive there. Most roses need a fair bit of sun.
  • Thank you both for your comments. There is no shade of other trees on these and they get plenty of sun. The only spray which they received was neem oil - done by me because of all kind of weird pests in the soil which were biting into the new leaves. Could that be a cause for this?

    Is pruning the only way. Is there any insecticide or pesticide i should be using?
  • LoxleyLoxley Posts: 5,698
    I think it sounds like they didn't like the neem oil!
    "What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbour". 
  • fidgetbonesfidgetbones Posts: 17,618
    I think the cure was worse than the problem. I know it is hard, but if you encourage birds into the garden, pests find a balance.  If I had that lot, I would rip them all out and start with a clean slate.
  • Lizzie27Lizzie27 Posts: 12,494
    I'm afraid any type of oil sprayed on the leaves would stop them from 'breathing' and taking in nutrients and moisture from the air. You could try hosing them down thoroughly with water and see if that helps. If you don't want to prune them, try cutting off all the leaves with brown edges and see if they grow new ones. The bush with the very brown leaves I think is dead and should be removed. Again, with the roses, prune off all the dead/brown bits, water them well and see if they recover with new leaves and shoots. DO NOT spray them with any pesticide or insecticide, they need time to recover, then if you really must use only a pesticide especially for roses. Insects are a fact of life in the garden and are part of the natural cycle - some years are better than others. If the bushes and roses do not recover within 2-3 months, you will have to dig them up and start again.
    North East Somerset - Clay soil over limestone
  • NollieNollie Posts: 7,529
    I think that is probably the case, neem oil + sun = fried leaves. I tried it on my roses once, unfortunately my spraying was followed by unexpected hot weather and that was exactly what happened. If you use neem oil in the future, make sure you dilute the neem properly with water, adding a drop of mild eco soap (liquid potassium soap is good) to the spray bottle and shake it well. Spray when its forecast cool and cloudy for the following week.

    You could try cutting the roses back by about a third, remove all damaged leaves, give them a good water and loosely work in a rose feed (not too much) in the soil around the roses (but not in direct contact with the stems). They will put on new growth and eventually recover. That worked for my roses. Don’t apply any insecticide/pesticide, best to let the roses recover naturally.

    I don’t know if similar treatment would work with the laurels but worth a go.

    Good luck!
    Mountainous Northern Catalunya, Spain. Hot summers, cold winters.
  • Got it. Let me try the suggestions. What do you make of the third picture with the white thing on top of the leaves?

    btw any guesses on what this plant is. How can I make sure of what it is
  • LiriodendronLiriodendron Posts: 8,328
    It's a bit difficult to see the "white thing"...  is it fluffy?  I wondered if it was woolly aphid.  Otherwise it could be mildew, perhaps.  I'm pretty sure that all those first six photos (up to the rose ones) are of cherry laurel, as others have said.  It's a good hedging plant, with evergreen leaves, if you like it and can get it growing healthily.  I'd just keep it watered regularly, and feed it with a general fertiliser if you haven't already done so this year.  Hold off the sprays even if it appears to have insects eating it - the insects will provide food for the birds in your garden and for ladybirds etc, and the laurel will survive ok.  The plants should soon grow new healthy leaves.  You can remove the dead bits in time.  The old stems which are green, are just covered in algae - nothing to worry about.  If you walk through a wood you'll often find the tree trunks are green on one side.  Young laurel stems are always green, and shiny, become brown with age, and may develop algae or lichen when old.  The completely black stems are probably dead.

    I've just realised that @Nollie has given you virtually the same advice for the damaged roses.   :)
    Since 2019 I've lived in east Clare, in the west of Ireland.
  • Thank you all.  Spraying water to remove the oil actually helped a bit. But the original problem seems to be still there. 

    1) I am posting fresh pictures of the white behind the leaves. 
    2) the dried leaves problem seems to be spreading. See last picture where the original left plant had dried up and now the one on its right is also starting to dry up

    😫😢😢😢
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