Forum home› Problem solving
This Forum will close on Wednesday 27 March, 2024. Please refer to the announcement on the Discussions page for further detail.

Strange growth on Gaura

gavpregavpre Posts: 33
edited June 2020 in Problem solving
Im having problems with my gaura 'the bride' this year. I have a section of them and they all seem to have lots of strange growth this year.

It appears instead of normal leaf growth it has lots of micro leaves growing. The growth has been stunted too and no signs of flowers either and ive seen lots of local gaura in flower too. They are planted in  a south facing border with sun all day and i have kept them regularly watered. About 3 years old.

I have lost a couple of them too. But i think that may have been a late frost that caused them too die.



Posts

  • floraliesfloralies Posts: 2,718
    Mine have been exactly the same this year, same weird growth. They are now showing signs of some more normal growth with flowers. I am in SW France and there were no late frosts only very wet on and off in the spring. Let's hope someone will know the answer!
  • Pete.8Pete.8 Posts: 11,340
    I have about a dozen The Bride I grew from seed last year.
    Early in the season mine started looking rather like the pic above, so I cut it all back quite severely and now it looks normal and is flowering.
    I've little experience of them, but I wonder if they're trying to grow rapidly, but being on old stems the plant can't get enough nutrients and water to them which is causing the weird growth - but that is just a thought.
    I don't know how much they're supposed to be cut back after flowering other than the RHS site mentions that they should be.

    Billericay - Essex

    Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit.
    Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
  • B3B3 Posts: 27,505
    It looks  a bit like fuchsia gall mite. I wonder if it's something similar.
    In London. Keen but lazy.
  • gavpregavpre Posts: 33
    Im glad its not just mine.
    I did give it a little liquid feed a while ago but all my other plants have been fine. 
    I think ill try cutting them back and see what happens. Ill have a closer look to see if i can see anything in the leaves.
  • floraliesfloralies Posts: 2,718
    I left mine over winter and pruned them in the spring, after the pruning they grew like that. I noticed that if I pulled at some of the strange growth it just came away in my hand, very strange. Even now they are stunted in growth compared to how they usually grow.
  • gavpregavpre Posts: 33
    Just an update on my gaura. I never got round to cutting them back and left them. They now have normal growth and are now in flower. I think the warmer start to the year then the cold snap stunted them but they seem to have recovered now.
  • gavpregavpre Posts: 33

Sign In or Register to comment.