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laurel plants being eaten!
Karen Kay
Posts: 10
Hello . can someone please help solve the problem with my laurel hedging plants.
I planted a row of plants last year and they were initially doing well, but over the winter they have been eaten drastically. Firstly we thought it was deer but now i'm wondering if its bugs. I have recently planted more in a different section of garden and even though they are strong healthy plants I think these are now being affected as well. The leaves have holes in them and also bite marks around the edges. some plants have been completely destroyed. please can someone help identify the problem and advise me what to do about it. many thanks. Karen
0
Posts
The round cut outs make me think of the leafcutter bee. Could the other damage be due to the strong winds we've been having?
Karen, your first picture shows classic signs of a bacterial infection not insect damage. Your last picture seems to show an infection with fungal spores (the brown spots) on the underside of the leaf.
I seriously doubt it's insect damage. The other young plants you describe could be being eaten by rabbits. They will feed on young laurel.
In all I'd say you have a combination of problems, some slug damage, rabbit damage and a bacterial infection.
The rabbits and slugs you can tackle, the bacterial infection you can't.
It could be the new plants you planted were already infected when you bought them.
The good news is, if you can control the rabbit and slug damage, the laurel will recover from the bacterial infection when it starts to get going later in the month and the weather improves.
One thing I would do is get some nematodes for vine weevil and water them in as an insurance policy.
thanks so much for the responses. I will take all these things into account. I hope I don't loose them all! Someone mentioned to me about adult vine weevil so I will definitely treat them for that. Can you see vine weevil?
You can see the adult it's a beetle, google the images. It's the larvae you treat with the nematodes, you water it in. I'd hazard a guess they are about so it's a precaution more than anything else.
The shape of the notches in the leaves in your second picture suggests adult vine weevil to me. I'm sure if you google vine weevil damage it'll show you something similar. As Dave Morgan suggests it's the larvae which do more damage, and they do it underground, eating the roots & weakening or killing the plant. Too early to treat with nematodes in this neck of the woods (W Yorks) - can't remember what temperature the soil needs to be, but it's certainly higher than 2C...
thanks so much for all the advise.