Yup we had avery lot of rain for the last month. We had 2" in the last two weeks and another 1/2" due tonight! My David's Lavender has serious powdery mildew. My Jacob Cline also! Most of my rudbeckias and coneflowers have those spots as well.I wonder if there is another plant growing near our milkweed that is acting toxic to them? You know like not good companionslike how happens with veggies....
Cottage Garden Seed Swap & Chat #37
Could be I guess, I don't usually have any plants other than sunflowers, a perennial aster and bronze fennel growing around mine I did have castor bean last year that reseeded this year there for this year and tithonia (sp) and four o clocks and oh yes my iron weed.
In the other bed I had larkspur, roses, jubilee gem batchlor buttons, violets, roses and my orange butterfly weed, none of that sounds like it would do them any harm you think?
The other bed that my orange one with the wilt was in last year had blue clips, lucifer corosma (sp) campanula, maltese cross and purple top verbena, ragged robin and another flower I can't think of the name it has leaves like rabbit ear and pink blooms lol
The ones that I have that match stuff you have are perennial aster, and maltese cross. I definitely don't think the aster would cause a problem because they would grow together in the wild most likely. Maybe Maltese Cross? Probably not though.
I'll let you know when I get a response from my email they should answer it in a couple of days. I just hope they have a good answer.
Here ya go LeBug and Meridith. Ya don't nee dot be spendign money for lab tests. You have a bacterial leaf wilt.
http://www.apsnet.org/pd/PDFS/1995/PlantDisease79n11_1176.PDF
trust me. You wil send in yoru sample an dyoru money and wait weeks for the test results and they wil take the sample and cut a small section of it and plac ein petrie dish and watch th ecultur e grow for a coupel of weeks and then make a tissue culture slide of it and it wil show ya got a bacterial wilt .
They wil do the same thing I do, take the symptoms and sicne ya have a wilt, start hunting bacterial wilts of the plants and test for that. That how it done in the pathology labs.
Take the plats that infected, pul them up and either throw in a trash bag or burn if ya have a burn pile, but do not compost them on your property. The sooner you get them out of there the les s chanc e you have of infectign your other plants and the seed s beign made on thos plants.
Just don't plant any mroe of them in that are a for a couple of years, plant in a differnt area.
Star thank you! I'll have to read it a little later have some running to get done this morning but sounds like that is possiable that is a leaf bed, I threw my two plants away that I dug up the other day they never got flowers on them so I didn't get any seeds off of them. One bed that I had an orange butterfly weed die in from the wilt didn't have any leaves on it but I'm going to read that and see what is going on, thanks for finding that article!
Don't plant any more plants in that area for a couple of years lol That is my host garden, oh my! I guess it will be worth it though lol I plan on planting more host plants where I got my tree cut down so maybe I can have those to play with instead of my host garden heck I may just plant another host garden there!
Oh, my! That is quite a bit of research on the milkweed blight! I think I have some of that too in my rudbeckias and maybe my A. tuberosas.
And what bad news to find out we can't plant in that area next year! That's my host garden, too, and about the only really sunny spot I have in the yard!
Thanks for the Link to all that research, Star! (You should be a librarian!)
Star how in the world did you find that article lol Thanks so much I believe that is it!
Since the Purpurescens had it this year and that bed hasn't had it before and those were new seeds I'm wondering if it was in the seeds! Looks like the seeds are from Canada that's what the address is on the package anyway now I'm afraid to sow any of them! They would be going in a completely new bed and I sure don't want that blight in that bed now what to do!
Ya all I am having major puter problems again. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr so if I don't answer ya know why. Nobody aroudn me has a puter either and it logn distance to library one.
Le bug the seeds. do not plant. If one see difnecte d they all could be/ Only way you could tell would be to individual pot eahc one up and watch it grow and then see if it devlops symptons.
When I say don't plant there again. I don't mean the whole area. Sorry abotu that, I mean don't plant the same type of plant. Youc na plant other plants there adn should have no problem as long as they not in the exact same family.
The reason is because if you did not get all the tiny piece s of root out of that area, you could stil have some infecte d pieces as with a bacterial disease it infects all parts of the plant. it goes up one side and down to root s and back up again. You would have some of the bacteria in the roots and even though they may be compstign down eventually they could postentially infect your plant if you plant another milkweed there. Any other milkweeds you plant aroudn that area keep two feet from that are a on each side away from the plant ya pulled up.
My minor is in plant pathology. Viruses and fungal diseases. If my puter wasn't beign so stupid I would get some better and easier to read for ya documents. That oen is a r easeasrch study as this is a relatively new strain, and it not a high dollar plant that woudl caus e economical loss to growers ther e not a whole lot of research on it yet.
Everytime you trade seed or buy seed form a hoem gardenenr, you take a chance on possible havign an infecte d plant. Even buying comemrcial seed it cna happen but more control there. Have said before best thign you cna do with seed is to dip in hydrogen peroxide soltion or if seed to tiny us e a mist bottle and spray it. That wil take care of most fungal problems. With bacterial ther e is no cure other than pulling and burning or buying resistant seed which is not 100% but maybe abotu 98%.
I would suggest since there is the problem of X disease with the milkweed, I would start and grow all the plants out individually adn then later put into garden and use somethign like garden safe 3 in one spray on them to protect them from getting a bacterial infection. It is a fungicide, insecticide which wil protect from aphids adn leaf hoppers adn other insects that can pick up a bacterial disease and passit on next plant they drink from and minor fertilizer all in one. Good stuff and doesn't hur tthe beneficials.
OK, thanks Star! I've never heard of the garden safe 3 in one spray I'll check that out for sure is that the real name to it I may have to order it on line I don't think I've ever seen anything like that here. I'll look closer at wal mart and the nursery next time I go in. I have some of that messenger Seed Treatment that I haven't used yet too this might be a good time to use it I'll have to go to their site and see if it's a fungicide too seems like it is.
I have so many weeds in my host bed that I can just work on getting those out for the next couple of years it'll probably take that long anyway it's so out of control and just start another host bed for next year I was going to plant some the other day and Meredith didn't want any so I never started them for my self lol Guess I'll look for that stuff that you suggested in the mean time and get to planting lol
Now you are making me nervous about all those other bugs too hopping from plant to plant lol Stop it lol
What is going to happen to our butterfly population later on this is not good news!! Didn't that article say it has been around since 1987, that was my take on it, I'll have nightmares tonite about my butterflies lol
Thanks so much Star ;-)
Hope you get your computer problem fixed I know how that can be, one neighbor has a computer that I can use when mine is on the blink but she doesn't want me on it for very long and the other neighbor that has a computer is never at home but at least I have neighbors that have computers now they didn't used to when I first got out here and had all of my computer problems. Good Luck!
Star, I hope you don't mind I'm going to quote what you said on here on how to try and treat the disease on my thread I know you are having computer trouble so I wouldn't ask you to come over there but if you get a chance I would love it if you would come over :) Your advise sounds too good not to mention :)
Hey Lea!
I was the one who asked earlier about dead-heading the perennial cornflowers. I've been dead-heading and attempting to save some seeds but boy you have to be quick with those suckers. Have you ever saved them? I'm kind of confused. Well, not kinda. I AM confused. I started saving what seemed to be the obvious seed choice, but when I looked on the Seed Site their description didn't match what I had been saving. If you've ever collected them I'll take a picture of what I've got and you can tell me if I've got the right thing.
I've started saving what I can now 'cause I have a feeling my time is going to be pretty limited this fall. I may not even have time to join the other piggies this year, but I want to have a few offerings ready just in case.
;-)
Lebug.. Sure no problem at all. You cna fidn th egrden safe products and that is the name at Walmart. If you can't fidn th ethree in one get whateve r oen they have that is an insecticide. Lowe's carries it too. Not sur e how abotu home depot.
Te othe r oen I use that doesn't hur t my beneficials is a product called ecosense brand an outdoor insect killer it by ortho . Kills mite s , whiteflies, aphids and all kind s of insects abd their eggs and safe to us eon flower sand veggies and it kills on contact.
La, they are thick little tan like seeds most are almost not quite a 1/4" long yep I've been missing mine too! Look around the bottom of your plants I bet they reseeded from all the seeds falling I took a bunch of seedlings up of the blue and the white I may try selling plants again next year. If you know the seeds to the blue bachelor buttons that you have they are like those only bigger and nice and fat lol They do seem to open and spill out quick! Sure you can take a picture of them and I can tell you :)
Star, I was just at wal mart today I ran in real quick to pick up some new lens for my glasses that were badly needed and wanted to look then but I was in a hurry to get back home then they had my bifocals too high and they had to send them back a wasted trip for such a busy day lol I got the grass cut and now I need to get some papers together for the lawyers tomorrow I'll check it out next time I go in thanks! I've never used all these sprays before lol I'll just get the one for the wilt I have a nice bug thing going on in the yard and don't want to upset the apple cart lol I have all kinds of praying mantis this year too yipee!!!
Thanks for letting me quote you lol I sure wish I could help you with your computer!
Thanks Lea you gave a perfect description of what I had been saving.
I have question maybe somebody cna answer for me. Just went shopping up ont he Market place and got me some of these and another type of geranium seeds. the perennial ones.
Geranium macrorrhizum spessart
I wondering cna i sow them now and do ya think they wil grow enough to over winte ok, or when do ya think I should start them if I want them to be nice and big by mid April of next year?
Your welcome La glad I could help.
My experience with geraniums Star they don't grow very fast I would start them in the house next year or in the spring outside. In the plantfiles it says it 'Self-sows freely', I would WS that one. I've grown them from seed under lights and by the fall they are in five inch pots just right then for planting in the fall if you start them now they would be smaller.
That's a pretty geranium!
http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/showimage/3783/
Next question. Although I enjoy the butterflies and have started planting a few things to encourage them I'm pretty ignorant about host plants, cats, and the like. That being said, are the little cats that are turning my holly hocks into Irish lace something I want to spare or can I bust out the Sevin on them?
Are the little bity light green worms La if so they are the cabbage worms and you can spray away I need to see what kind are on mine I think they are a light green there aren't any butterfly cats that use the HH for a host plant. I hate those cabbage worms and those cabbage butterflies are everwhere very destructive here they are small and white. Something is on mine and I haven't had the time to look they get eaten every year either from them or the JP beetles and June bugs.
http://www.extension.umn.edu/yardandgarden/ygbriefs/e253caterpillarpests-cole.html
Make sure you spray late in the evening or early in the morning so not to hurt the butterflies that might get on your flowers :)
Yes I think that's what they are. They are quite small and there's a lot of them. I've never had any serious pest problems in the past so I've gotten quite an education this year. Thanks so much, they're getting blasted tonight.
Good tip about the cabbage worms. My Hibiscus leaves are looking tatty, but I'm only seeing a couple of JBs out there, so maybe it's something else this year.
I went out and looked and so far today I didn't see anything but they are eaten up, no cabbage worms that I can see but my glasses need changing when they first hatch they are so darn small and I just got a call to go pick them up (my new lens) not sure if I will have time today my sister is asking for more paper work that I have to work on today to have ready by tomorrow :) I am so sick of paper work keeping me from my gardening this year!!!
star, I grow Geranium macrorrhizum, not that variety ( I need to, its a beauty!), and haven't found self sown seedlings yet (I've had them 4 or 5 years), but they increase nicely. I've started several varieties of hardy geranium from seed, and found them pretty easy. I think most prefer warm-cold cycles to germinate well. I have good luck wintersowing them and have sown them and alternated between the fridg and room temp till they sprouted. As Lea said, they're kinda slow, so I'd agree late winter-spring would be a better time to ensure winter survival.
critter, very few Japanese beetles here either. I'm so enjoying seeing rose and dahlia blooms in July, it's almost surreal, LOL.
Thans for the geranium help. She put some mroe geraniumseed s up so I picke d up anotehr kind too, forget what they calle d but they perennial ones.
critter. Soudns liek you have maybe some Hibiscus sawflie s eatign away on yoru plants. They make a teeny and i mean teeny tiny green worm that hide sunder the leaf adn munche s away. They got mine bad this year.
Star, what do I do about them? Get a fresh bottle of Bt? Or would a bit of neem or insecticidal soap be enough to discourage them? I've got a bunch of buds getting close to blooming and would rather not have the flowers be similarly munched!
Hi I was just catching up. I have the Hibiscus Sawfly problem every year. The BT won't work on them because they are not caterpillars. I tried using the Bayer Advanced systemic treatment and it didn't seem to help, so instead of poisoning potential beneficials in the area I decided to only use hand control from now on. I am pretty sure you could use a regular horticultural oil or soapy water. The trick is to be diligent. I ended up just picking them all off or removing the entire leave they were feeding on and disposing of them. The leaves were so far gone they weren't making the plant look good anyway. I need to try and be good about checking them often earlier in the season next year. If you can catch the eggs before they hatch it will be a much easier battle. I did manage to find a few eggs and disposed of them but I already had heavy larvae infestation. They seem to be under control now but now the Japanese Beetles are starting. I have squished at least a dozen a day for the last few days. One of the reasons I haven't been on dg much. Between the JBs, Rose Chafers and weeds I haven't had much time.
Thanks!
Yep, that exactly what I do. Hand pick adn squish. They small . I haven't notie d them eatign my bud s so much a they totally defliate the leave s. I do knwo that seven dust won't work on them either . trie d that and bought lost all my plants.
The hummers drink from the plants , so I don't us e anythign on mine. Now at the end of the season, I wil take some seven dust and make it into a liquid and soak the soil with it to kil any overwintering eggs and flie s in the soil.
I am baffled... I've got leaves that are so lacy with holes they're nearly skeletons, but I am not finding any bugs on them at all. I'm looking under the leaves, etc., even looked with a magnifying glass. Maybe they are done dining and have moved on?
Critter mine are the same way. The other day I found cat after cat on the undersides of my HH leaves, but this morning when I intended to give them a shot of Sevin I didn't see a single one. We had just had a brief rain....would that have been enough to make them go underground?
I got my new lens for my glasses yesterday and one of the first things when I got home was to look for worms on my HH and I didn't see any either guess they have moved on.
Star, I wonder if I mix some liquid seven up it will take care of the weevils that lay their eggs in the ground at the end of the summer it's worth a shot it sure took care of the babies on the hibiscus leaves, I had such a mess of them last year I had to do something about them this year I really hated to use the seven, it was kind of creepy how many I had last year on them they were covered! I wonder what kind of bugs eat the weevils I've never seen any other bugs on them but the weevils.
I've heard before to sprinkle baby powder at the bottom of plants for the JP beetles but I've never tried it. I wonder when they lay their eggs in the ground.
I think I have the same mole stuck in my corner by the drive and front road in my bed again this year! He is making such a mess there with all kinds of hills of dirt and raising my plants up out of the ground one good thing it's easier to pull the weeds and grass there lol The moles are soo bad in the field I have this one spot with so many dirt hills from them that the dirt gets in the air when I mow over them and I can't even see for a minute from the dust flying! As far as I can tell these castor bean plants don't do what everyone says they do I still have moles just feet away from the plants :( Anyone else having this problem or is it just me?
Critter. They have ate ther e fil and have probably morphed already. Check aroudn yoru plants and see if ya dont see maybe some tiny baby flies hanging around. They very tiny and usually dont go too far from plant .
Mine are doen now munchign too and ya i wil us e th eliquid seven on the soil and not on the plants.
Lee it should. I us e it in the fall and in th espring . I just pour over the top of soil . Sometime s I us e th epowder, btu i liek the liquid better cuz it spread s through mor eare a of the soil. I just make sur e no rain for acoupel of days to giv eit time to work.
Le.. It hsoudl work on th e weevils too. I always try and kil stuf fin nee d be when it gone under ground so that I don't hurt th ebeneficals.
if ya want to get rid of Jp beetles. Don't us e traps. Them beetles lay ther eggs in the ground and th eeggs turn into the larvea which will become yoru cut worms. This property wa s loaded with them. very few now. The larvae stay pretty clos e to the surfae, usually in the top 6" of soil wher e they cna munch the heck out of the root s and plants and get back to the surface easily . The one section I turne d into bed s that had been an old field grass had em big time evry few inches. What I did wa too things. One turned the soil and ya cna see them and squish them. The other thing was I got a bag of the terminator from the store. I sprinkled it on kidn a heavy right before a rain and let it soak down into the ground. it wil take otu the jp bettle larvae and all kidns of other nasties abotu 100 of them that hide in theground. I make sur e i dont get it on the plants just in the soil. works liek a charm. It sorta expensive abotu 15 -20 bucks a bag but cleared out alll the cutworms and other nasty larva to include a bunch of hopper eggs too.
I think we get more traffic over here than the seed saving forum so I'm going to try you guys. I'm trying to save some seed from my Snow Hill Salvia http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/80619/ and I'm struggling. I thought I found small pods and was breaking them open looking for seeds....which I may have found. Or maybe not. My poor old eyes are failing me. Each 'pod' contained one or 2 things that I would have guessed to be the seed (they are so small!) but then I started wondering if the seed wasn't actually the dust-like stuff that was left over. Then I started wondering if what I thought of as the pod was actually the seed. Can anybody help me with this? I tried the Seed Site and didn't have much luck, but I confess I might have been looking under the wrong thing. I get pretty confused with the botanical names on the salvias.
Thanks Star, I'll do the liquid thing in the fall then again in the spring I have a lot of those grubs when I'm diggin just in the yard and anything to get rid of those weevils lol I've seen a lot of cut worms this year too I wonder what is up with that. I've never had them to dut into my seedlings but I put those collars around them until they get big enough but pulled a weed up yesterday and there was a big fat one at the end of it I thanked him for not being on my plants then stepped on him big time LOL I didn't think they chewed on the bigger plants but I know that's what it was.
This is the second year for my little joe pye weed and it's blooming so pretty and looking so nice I'm glad it's a weed cause it looks really nice with all the weeds around it, it's in the what was suppose to be my orange garden for this year :( Before I decided it was going to be orange along with my painter's pallet lol
LaLa.. Looks like seed to me. if each bloom was pollinated it woudl make one seed. You coudl take oen of the seed lookign one s and gently peel it openand see if a thousand tiny seed fall or not. I could be wrong, but I think it the seed.
hello everybody!!! i have been pouring over your photos and drooling, drooling, drooling. they are all so beautiful!! i swear i did not fall off the face of the planet and i have missed you all SO much! we moved in may, from ohio to oklahoma. that probably says everything you all could think of - had to give away and leave almost everything (plants that is). :-( i am SO missing my plants and the babies and all the seeds i started. knowing that most of what i gave is probably dead. LOL. i even noticed that many of you all wished me a happy birthday (back in may)....THANK YOU! you all are so sweet. now that my life is settling back into some sort of a routine and the house is fairly unpacked, i can jump back in here. i have missed you all more than words can say. big hugs!
~chele
So tell us about your new place chele :) Are you going to go mad trying to plant this place lol
Welcome back Cheles! Happy to see you posting! : )
I'm loving the new additions we have thanks to you all :)))
Favorites are the Yvonne's salvia and Painted sage
yes, i'm going to go crazy planting around here - but so much fun!! sad i had to leave so much, but at the same time, i have a great place for planting!! my front yard is half shaded and faces north - with an almost empty landscaped area. my backyard is devoid of any vegetation and faces south - perfect for summer planting and veggies! full sun on the south side. this summer is rather barren.....but gives me just enough time to plan for next year. something to look forward to. :-)