red baneberry with brown spots on leaves

I bought 5 red baneberries last year - only 2 returned this spring - and the same thing is occuring again this year - the leaves start with little brown spots, then the entire leaf turns brown and falls off, then the entire plant is turning brown, wilting, and dying? I did get a few red berries that I will try to germinate the seeds, but, I'm really hoping I can get these plants to survive in my garden - they are in a mostly shady site...

well, now the entire plants turned brown and wilted, I don't know if they will return next spring, or if I will manage growing these in the future. I do want to try at least once more.
The plants were from Joy Creek nursery. I don't know if they had some kind of fungus to start with?

Can you post a picture? It's hard to tell what's wrong with plants just from the description because there are many things that have similar symptoms. My guess is there was some sort of fungus in your soil, and through watering (or rain) the fungus got splashed up on the leaves and grew there--you can minimize things like this happening by using drip irrigation instead of overhead watering and watering in the morning rather than the evening, but of course you can't help when the rain decides to fall so sometimes these things just happen.

thanks - it's too late for a picture - but this was the second year the same thing happened - better luck next year!

Were last year's plants in the same place in the garden? If so, then I suspect a soil born fungus, either that or the conditions in that part of the garden are just generally too wet or wrong in some other way for these plants (I don't know anything about the appropriate conditions to grow them in). If it's a soil born fungus, they live in the soil for a long time, and if you plant something there that's susceptible to that particular sort of fungus, then you'll keep getting infections every year. I'd try planting the baneberries somewhere else in the garden, and plant something else in that spot that's not even related at all to baneberries, that may help. The best thing to do is find out what the fungus was, then you can find lists of plants that aren't susceptible to it, if you have even a little bit of the plant left you might take it to your county extension office and see if they know what it was. Or even if you don't have any of the plant left, you could always ask them if they know what fungi baneberries are susceptible to. Once you know what the possibilities are, do a search on the internet for plants that aren't susceptible to that fungus.

Thanks for all your help. I do use a soaker hose in most of my garden. I'll try the baneberries in that area, and I did put in a perennial geranium that looks great right now , so I'll keep an eye on that.