Let's talk leaf spot prevention

On another thread leaf spot was brought up and the necessity for treatment before it begins. One product was mentioned.

What experience do you have in treating it and how successful was it? What product(s) do you use? What is best and safest?

K

I use Dacinol, it is hard to prevent for a commercial bed as well as either
overhead watering, animals, people, and irrigation,. I stray as soon as I can every two weeks until I get too busy.

D

This message was edited Feb 24, 2010 11:44 AM

Where do you get Dacinol Dee? Guess what, now I have a sinus cold. Cannot win for trying.

Dee, I had a husband like that. LOL!

Forgive me, Dee.I couldn't resist. It is just too true. He mysteriously left me every two weeks for a period of time. Then one day his girlfriend called me because he was straying on her and she was upset enough to spill the beans on him!! In the course of the conversation she told me he had been showing up on her doorstep every two weeks and I put 2 and 2 together with the strange pattern I had endured on my viewing end of things.

Now back to lovely flowers and keeping them that way. Thank you for the advice. I saw the same advice on another thread but usually there are a number of tried and true methods people use in solving other problems.

K

This message was edited Feb 24, 2010 2:55 PM

Daconil is available both in the concentrate form and pre-mixed. Last year, I bought the concentrate in a gallon container for about $50 at Lowe's. I do not know the price of the pre-mix but it is in a spray bottle, close to a quart size, much the same as a large bottle of windex. I lost the label for the concentrate but it seems like it was about 2 oz per gallon so you would be looking at about 60 gallons of spray. Meant to be used in the typical 2 gallon hand pumped pressure sprayers. Probably would help to give the soil around the plant a generous dose in addition to the plant.

Like most diseases, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Do not plant too closely together. Allow plenty of sunlight and ventilation. Avoid watering the leaves as much as possible during dry times. Don't water at all unless the soil is dry for an extended period. Avoid using high nitrate fertilizer to prevent overgrown leaves. Do not walk among or brush against the leaves when they are wet, even with heavy dew. Sterilize your cutting tools with 10 to 20% bleach if you must trim bad leaves. Re-dip each time you move from plant to plant. Clean up all dead leaves both in the fall and spring.

That was great info. Thanks so very much.

www.dvis-ais.org/iris-fungus.html

Thank you for allll the info. Now I guess my only remaining question is when do I first apply it? It appears it would be best to apply before new leaf growth takes off, like quickly coming up, and then reapply every two weeks. I do not know if I can even find it this time of year. I will have to make some inquiries. I also need to throw out some Preen soon to keep those weeds at bay. It looks like the Preen I put down in late Fall due to great advice I read on here, did a good job on most of the weeds that ride the Winter. The exception is something that looks alot like Baby Tears. Nothing seems to affect it. I will try to get after it with a roller with Roundup on it on a very calm day. That idea also came from advice on here.

This year I have got to use chemicals to keep up. I need to learn as much as I can and really put it to use. Last year I messed up my shoulders and neck for 12 weeks after working tooo hard for weeks trying to keep up with extreme weeding. It didn't occur to me all the extra nourishment for the iris would be food for weeds too. I do not want to go through that again. Frankly, I do not think I could. It was a 12 week nightmare headache and soreness that messed up so much of my physical ability to garden, and care for my home. So, there is some catching up I need to do with maintenance, too.

Thank you so much, you may have saved someone a whole lotta problems.

K

K, please tell me about the "roller with Roundup" -- sounds interesting. I stopped using Roundup around my irises because I used it for a couple of years in this one area and it soaked into the ground, and it's taken another three years or so for irises I've since planted in that area to start really growing. And someone else mentioned that Roundup is not good around irises, so I stopped. But I have this other little area where Bermuda grass is starting to come up from the depths, and Roundup would be really great there, but I'm afraid to use it anywhere where I'll be planting irises. Do you mean a paint roller? I've heard of painting Roundup on weeds with a brush and even tried it once but soon decided I would go insane if I continued with that. Preen is really great and I use that everywhere now -- but of course it doesn't touch Bermuda because it's not germinating from seeds. So I would really appreciate learning about how you use a roller.

Thanks, Betty

Betty, I haven't tried the paint roller idea yet. I wanted to in the Fall but the days were so windy when I could have tried that I didn't do it. I thought the only problem with Roundup was caused by drifting onto the leaves and then it goes systemic and kills the weeds but in the case of iris it messes with the rhizomes and flowers that later result. No one has mentioned a residual affect on the ground itself. I thought it's affects were only above ground on existing leaf growth.

Someone more experienced than me might be able to answer your question.

K

Use an over the top grass killer in your iris beds. It will not hurt your irises but will kill the grass.Be sure and read the label really well. I use it on both my iris and daylily beds. Some of these beds are over 100 ft long. We actually mix it up in a big spray rig on the John Deere Tractor and use the boom bars. I too have bermuda grass and it's a pain in the rear end to get out of your beds once it has a foot hold. One person should not have more plants than they can take care of. I keep telling myself this but I keep purchasing and trading for more plants. Yelp, I'm a plant addict and I've got it really really bad.

I'm even going to try my hand at making some iris crosses this year and growing some seedlings. I just made a couple of crosses with my Amaryllis and have seed pods on them as we speak. I'm very anxious to see what I come up with. But of course that's several years down the road provided they even grow. (grin) Fooling with mother nature and dabbing pollen can be very rewarding. Now if I only knew what I was doing I'd have it made.

Happy Gardening and good luck with keeping the grass under control this year.
Marian

Oh Darn! I was going to bookmark a previous thread but I didn't, and now I can't find it. It was about getting rid of grass and weeds in iris beds, and there was really a whole bunch of very good information on it. I tried doing a search but apparently the search feature doesn't work like it used to. Now that it is getting close to that time of year, does anyone remember what thread it was? :(

Go to your info. It will give you a history of threads you have been on and when. Maybe you can narrow it down by that.

Thank you Sharon!

If anyone is interested, a very good thread from last year about weeds, etc. It is called "Weed Control in Your Iris Beds." I also bumped it up on the list of topics on the main page.

http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1020576/


This message was edited Mar 1, 2010 11:26 PM