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Diseased hedge diagnosis
Kits
Posts: 2
Hello gardeners,
Can anyone help? The front of our hedge is slowly dying and we have noticed this growing at the bottom - a sort of white/green furry substance.
Does anyone know what it is? Is there anything we can do to get it healthy again?
Thank you to anyone who can advise....
Kits
0
Posts
They look like lichens to me which on their own aren't a problem, however, it could be a sign of root rot. Now that is impossible to control. Root rot is present when the soil is particularly wet and the oxygen in the soil is excluded. Is your soil particularly wet? It seems the whole hedge isn't affected you may have to improve the drainage in that particular area to allow more oxygen into the soil.
Thank you for your responses!
Yes, sadly the hedge is definitely in decline. It has been slowly dying and getting thinner so now can see the street through it. The two hedges at the side are healthy and don't have the growth at the bottom, so we thought that was the cause of the problem. These are pictures of the hedge at the side and what the front looked like a few months ago.
Now it looks thin and brown as in the picture I posted at the top.
You are right the soil is very moist and does not get a great deal of light. The hedge is definitely dying - could it still be lichen if it is causing harm?
If it is root rot will improving the drainage save this hedge?
One person who walked past suggested powdery mildew and another honey fungus
so now I am very confused - could these be a possibility?
Thank you so much for taking the time to help!
Kits
It's neither of those Kits, very different diseases, you'll probably have to improve the drainage and you may lose the whole hedge. The wet winters we're having will continue, so doing the job this spring/summer will hopefully future proof the ground, and if you replant, try a different hedge plant. It should give better results. I always find privet a bit fickle, they can succumb to disease very quickly. A more robust laurel which tolerates damp soil may be a better option.
Well, if it feels powdery and comes away easily from the stem it's not lichen. To me the stuff looks like fungal spores so I suspect Dave is wright, As the stems are visibly cracked at the bottom, it also may come from the inside
Although the edges of the growth look lichen-like in the photo the it doesn't look like lichen to me. The distribution is wrong, lichen is not furry either.
I think these are dead/dying, as Kits fears and that growth is fungal
In the sticks near Peterborough
I don't think it's lichen either - it looks wrong and also it's so regular where it's appearing. I think that hedge is on it's way out.
I'd grasp the nettle, cut them down and dig them out, replace the exhausted soil with a mix of good topsoil and some well rotted farm yard manure and plant a new hedge. Perhaps something that'll be a bit happier with what's turning out to be a damp spot - hornbeam perhaps? That'd look lovely clipped regularly so that it retains its coppery leaves through the winter.
Every dead plant is a new opportunity
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
I wonder if close-up photo would help. I'd have no trouble distinguishing between mould/fungus and lichen if I could see clearly
In the sticks near Peterborough
I'm with Dove on this. These plants look quite old, and shrubs don't live forever.