It's just about ready to bloom and the stems at about mid stem are turning black and then the tops falling completely over. I can't find anything in any of my garden books that fits this, don't know if it's a disease or bugs or what.
Help! What's killing my bee balm?
I just an hour googling and reading and really can not find much that sounds like your trouble They all say mildrew, rust and yellows diseases. That doesn't sound like your problem. One mentioned botrytis (sp) blight and I wonder if that is it. It turns peonies black. Maybe? sorry, not much help...
Thanks, Kooger. I looked all over the internet and in every garden book I have and found nothing.
I did find one post somewhere on DG, now I'm forgeting who posted it, saying that planting near a black walnut gave his monkshood blackened stems. This is planted maybe 10-15 feet from two black walnuts. Bee balm is supposed to be immune to the juglone put out by the walnuts but it could be this one has just decided to get sensitive all of a sudden. And I did find a baby walnut tree had sprouted right next to it so that might be what made the difference.
The plants are still alive, just the middle of the stems turn black and then the top keels over. I may dig them out, wash off the roots and pot them up and see if that makes a difference. If it does I can move them to another bed with no black walnuts close by.
I'm just stumped. I don't know whether to treat for disease or bugs or what so maybe getting it out of that bed will work.
Thanks again for taking the time to look for an answer.
Hmmm, bummer! Do you have a good extension service in your area? Take or mail a piece of the plant to them and see if they can figure it out.
We do but I think I'm going to try moving it first.
Hart-- I am sorry about your bee balm. I do not know what caused this, but I know that the Black Walnut is deadly. I have a 1/2 acre lot and one big, 40 tall, black walnut in my yard. I have several gardens, all away from "the death tree." I do have raised garden outside its dripline. I keep every leaf and nut out, if possible. My bee balm in that garden is great.
I know there are plants that will grow under a walnut. I have a garden under the dripline of my neighbor's two walnuts and that garden is great, but it is all daylilies. I think the experts can't decide about certain plants because I have read bee balm should be OK near a walnut too.
I think your bee balm will recover and thrive if it away from the black walnut. I tend to grow Kentucky Blue Grass under mine...I'm a coward.
Good Luck!
My walnut is gone. I took it out 2 1/2 years ago, and things are starting to grow back there finally. It is great! Very fertile now. I put in some plants for the wildlife to try to replace what I took away....
That's good, Ivy1, because according to what I've read it takes years and years for the juglone to go away. You might want to use the lists of juglone tolerant plants until then.
Bee balm is supposed to be tolerant and this bee balm has been there for several years but like I said, the walnut seedling coming up next to it may have been what caused the problem.
I think the experts don't take into account other factors. I've noticed a lot of the plants that are on the lists, but not all, are also plants that like alkaline soil or are drought tolerant. In other words, plants that like the same conditions as the black walnut. So some of them may be better able to survive because the conditions are good for them too.
I have a lot of flowers in that bed that are thriving near the black walnuts. Daylilies, obedient plant, liatrus, coneflowers, black eyed susans, gooseneck loosestrife, red hot pokers, salvia, lambs ears, blue globe thistle, balloon flower to name some of them.
This is just a thought and maybe I'm way off base, but the problem I have with monarda is humidity...I've noticed mine have to have good air circulation around them and not be packed tightly with other plants. I tend to plant too closely to try to cut down on all these weeds I have to contend with. They also tend to require a lot of water for me--but we have high heat--and I'm sure that does not apply where you are.
Debbie
Au contraire, we've had a lot of mid 90s to 100 degree days lately and the humidity has been awful. They're in a spot where they're not at all crowded though.
It could be that I over watered them too. I noticed last year the spot where they're planted seems a bit too dry for them so I had been watering the daylights out of them. Yeah, I know better. LOL
BTW, this is the best list I've found of tolerant plants, shrubs, bulbs and trees.
http://wihort.uwex.edu/landscape/Juglone.htm
I've had that problem with bee balm also. Don't have any black walnuts in the yard. Not enough sun and overcrowding was my guess. I dug the clump and replanted in a better spot, and it did ok.
I'm the one with the Monkshood that blackened. It resembled fireblight. I dug and salvaged some of it and moved it, ironically to the garden which is close to another walnut, but they haven't blackened since. I haven't had any other plant blacken like that.
Thanks for posting, Billy. This doesn't look like fireblight. The leaves and flower buds are fine as is the stem above and below the middle. The middle, roughly a fourth, of the stems turned black and the tops just collapsed over. In fact, the collapsed tops are still green.
That is strange. I looked in Orthos Home Gardeners Problem solvers and couldn't come up with anything!
Yeah, I checked there and every other book I have, and I have a lot of books. And I looked all over the internet. Nada. When I remembered your post about your monkshood, I thought that might be the same but apparently not if yours looked like fireblight.
My whole stem blackened. Not brown, but black. Beebalm is supposed to tolerate black walnuts.
I've been looking for answers too. I'm curious now.
This is definitely black, not brown. I've had other plants that are supposed to be tolerant die faster than you can blink so I'm never surprised when something doesn't make it.
This small clump has been there for 2-3 years. It's never gotten very large and the plants have never gotten very tall so it probably has been suffering from the juglone all this time.
There are some spots in that bed that tend to be very dry and I had assumed it was struggling because it wasn't getting enough water.
I think lack of water would show up in the lower leaves turning brown and crumbly. Black is just so strange. Especially in the middle.
have you taken a black stem and cut it open? It might be a borer of some kind.
Haven't done anything yet. It's on my list of things to do this week. I had planned to slit the stems and see if I could see anything in there. I'll let you all know what I find.
Today, on our channel nine news, they had a master gardener on. Someone called in to ask if a black walnut was responsible for their plant turning black. No, it probably wasn't, but the master had no answer and advised taking a sample to the county extension agent. So, we're back to square one.
:S .......sure an wondering what's doing it.
I just planted a new beebalm under the walnut and it bloomed the other day.
Billy, mine has been there for several years with no apparent effect. But found a walnut seedling growing right in the middle of the clump of bee balm and I suspect that might have been too much.
Don't even get me started on master gardeners. I know the ones here know absolutely nothing about black walnuts or juglone. Which is kind of ridiculous considering black walnuts are a native tree and grow all over around here.
Laugh. I wonder why they're called Masters then! When I heard the question, I got excited. Wow, I'll finally have an answer for everyone. Well, that didn't happen, giggle!
I certainly don't know. I bought my heirloom tomato plants from a local master gardener this year thinking, "Wow, these ought to be great." They were the sorriest tomato plants I've ever seen. I'd have been ashamed to give them to anyone, much less charge money for them.
I contacted the extension office with a question about whether I could grow a certain plant near black walnuts earlier this year, which I preceeded by explaining I had searched extensively online as well as my numerous garden books.
They forwarded my question to the master gardeners. You know what they sent? The same daggone list of juglone tolerant plants that is maybe the third item that comes up when you search Google.
I gritted my teeth and said, "Yeah, seen that. What about this plant?" They had no clue.
Down here the master gardeners program is really a joke--they only have to sit there for 60 hours of lectures--that's clock hours not college hours. Nowadays anyone who has had had high school biology, chemistry, and geology has had a lot better education.
The thing is, I've had things that are on that juglone tolerant list that were doing badly in the bed by the black walnuts. I moved several of them to another bed this year and for the first time they're thriving. Others have done okay for a few years and then suddenly died. (That includes the monkshood, Billy, which had done very well for about four years and this year sprouted up for a while and then died back.)
I killed a lot of roses in that bed before I finally found out about juglone. But I let the Dr. Huey rootstock from one of the dead ones grow up and it's just as happy as it can be in that bed.
Interesting how some plants seem to change tolerance. Maybe soil conditions, temp, rain, sun, etc all play into the equation.
Regarding Master Gardeners, it would be best to go to that forum to discuss pros and cons of the various state programs. Having taken the IA program, I did learn a lot and also learned that MG have limited training and mainly are there to volunteer time, answer questions if possible, and assist by sending questions on to the U of I about such things as diseases, etc. Hart, if your state program is run by a university, as IA's is, ask your extension agent to send the plant or pictures to them. That's what we were taught to do here.
Any new news on this?
Isn't Bee Balm "collapsing" a sign that it needs to be root pruned?
Thanks.
The clump came back up this year and is just fine. I have no idea what was going on last year. They certainly weren't root pruned. They're taller and blooming longer this year than they have ever been before.
Cool!
anyone have a problem with the stem of the bee balm just toppling over, as if cut at the base? no sign of bugs. thanks.
I started reading this thread because of the mention of black leaves and then noticed that it was started back in 2006,so I haven't read every post. I just planted a 4" nursery pot at the beginning of May. It was looking great, then overnight literally, a weird fungus bubbled up out of the soil and kind of billowed over the lemon balm plant. The fungus was coral colored and looked as if it had been liquid before setting up (very strange and otherworldly). Since then I've seen this same fungus a few other places and sometimes it is coral colored and sometimes pale yellow, like a sourdough starter. Anyway, I broke the fungus off (it was moist but stiff and was stuck to the plant) and threw it in the yard. Everywhere the fungus touched the plant, the leaves looked withered and eventually turned black. I fully expected the plant to decline and die. That was about two weeks ago. Fast forward to today, all the black leaves are gone, and there is new growth. The plant is about three times as wide as it was, but not much taller. I'm now thinking that the wimpy leaves and their turning black was from the cold nights and that the fungus was coincidental. This is my first time growing in the soil in VA, and this bed I believe contained soil trucked in from a mushroom farm, because there are other fungi that look like Shiatake and black mushrooms and others springing up. Any correlation? Any ideas? Anyone?
Pam, Do you have mulch on that bed?
Mattsmom, Yes, it is a combination of wood mulch and possibly mushroom soil that was left by the landscaper at the back of the property and overwintered there before I used it this spring. I did try to keep the mulch away from the stems of the lemobalm when I planted.
I used to get some nasty stuff in my mulched perennial beds. It had the charming name of "Dog Vomit Fungus."
Harmless but disgusting just the same. There are pix & info if you Google.
When I showed it to my husband, I said this looks like a deer threw up all over it. Very aptly named. I would never have thought to look it up with that name-LOL. Thank you.