My hydrangea leaves have a lot of white, flaky stuff on them. A few of the leaves have also turned whitish in spots. The white flaky stuff is on the ground under the bush, too. This is the same bush where I found the caterpillars a few days ago. It is a very large, mature hydrangea bush that I recently pruned back.
Does anyone know what might be causing these problems, and how I can fix them? thanks.
At first glance I thought mealy bugs or wooly aphids of some sort. But looking up close the white flakes looks like something that was foreign. I cant think of any disease, pest or physiological cause.
So this one is a mystery to me
Thanks, Dr--I will keep an eye on it.
Do you think they may be wood shavings? From a borer or a carpenter bee?
That's an interesting idea. They look like little flakes of coconut. I have seen carpenter bees in the garden, and the weeping cherry that the hydrangea is next to was diagnosed with borers. The nursery recommended a systemic for the cherry tree. Is it possible that the same type of borers would bother both a weeping cherry and a hydrangea? Before I pruned the hydrangea, the limbs of the cherry were reaching down into the hydrangea, so it's possible they could be sharing bugs or whatever.
It could be shavings off a tree above the hydrangea (if there is one above it).
I found this on mine about a week ago. It definitely isn't wood shavings from some other area. There is something boring into the dead canes and the white stuff is the "core" of the canes. I can't find anything anywhere online about the cause and I don't see any insect. I just posted mine so maybe someone will now have an answer.
Just as an update: I figured out what the white flakes were. they were pollen from the mulberry tree hanging overhead!!! :-)
The flaky white stuff is coming out of hydrangea. I Vaught from the farm market at a discount because it had the flowers cut for arrangements. Have it in a pot with no plants or trees or shrubs anywhere near and I found the flaky stuff on the leaves and dirt underneath. It seems like it is coming from inside the new growth off the old canes.
There is a hydrangea borer that can do this.
Good luck getting rid of the hydrangea borer!
Thank you hcmcdole for posting that link to the borer insect!
I was able to quickly figure out that this was exactly my problem. I found three canes with holes at the top. I cut them and opened them up transversally. There the insects were!
It seems like this is it, but I will keep making daily checks to cut down all the infected canes. I was problaby fortunate enough to catch this problem early. There was definitely no white powdery stuff a couple of days ago.
I am posting some images.
Thank you erre and hcmdole I was totally confused by what I saw on my Hydrangeas until I read your posting. There is absolutely nothing in reference to a Hydrangea cane borer on the internet. Please let me know if you have discovered any method of chemically deleting this pest.
Would the cane borers also be the cause of the whitening leaves, though? Or is that possibly something else?
To Summer Storm93
Don't know, so far the whitening of leaves is not happening to my hydrangea.
Ok, so the whitening might be a symptom of borers, though I'd expect yellowing, or it could be a mold of some kind. Possibly a separate problem. Don't know if the original poster is still lurking, but if so, what's the humidity like there?
Ok, so the whitening might be a symptom of borers, though I'd expect yellowing, or it could be a mold of some kind. Possibly a separate problem. Don't know if the original poster is still lurking, but if so, what's the humidity like there?
