Yellow Box Leaves

Found one today with healthy-ish growth.



Green, glossy. Sort of. So any more blight?

Where's the blight, son?



Over there, Daddy.



Are those black spots?



What do I do?

 

Sorry to say this, but its normally recommended to remove the whole plant and burn it.

How are the plants that the cuttings came from? Are they showing any signs of blight?

 

Yes. I've removed most of the affected parts. I'll have another hunt soon. Not as easy as it sounds. I grip the stem to cut them and the dry leaves crumble and get lost in the mulch if I'm not careful. Do you think that burn effect (white patch surrounded by a beige ring and then a thin brown line) on the leaves is blight too or something else? I suppose they both need removing whatever they are.

Cane's higher than Tiny Cacadore but I'll check again, thanks. Great idea about a shell hunt.

Yes, I guess it might come to burning them. But that might mean every plant I've got, and I've got a lot. So I'm just cutting off the clumps of leaves where the blight is at the moment or in some cases, a whole stem in the hope dry weather and sun will kill the fungus I can't see. I'm going to keep an eye on them every day now. I plan to be more ruthless from now on.

It's only this year I noticed yellow leaves and I'm worried that's all blight, even the leaves with no black spots. Because if it is all my box is finished. Doomed. Do you think the yellow leaves could be blight in it's early stages or do you think it's only the ones with black spores?

I don't know. They all came from one plant - a bush near some land we have by a river, in a shady spot. I'll have a look when we next go there. But I remember there was some white sheen on bits of the bark mulch from a packet I used on the box last year. Fungus of some kind, so next time I'll try to dry the mulch out before I lay it down.

Maybe I should clear last year's mulch away from the underside of the box to make sure it's not retaining moisture and encouraging the fungus. What do you think?

 

The first thing that I would do is have a look at the parent plant. From the sound of it, its in an ideal spot to have contracted blight. If it has, then you can be certain your plants have it. As @shiney says above, if that is the case, theres not a lot you can do.

 

Massive prune in progress.

 

OK

 

Update:

H.I. ruthlessly snipped away all the yellow, dead and spotty bits a couple of weeks ago. I opened the base up to the air. Now there's some new growth.



No yellow leaves any more.
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OK. Aerate the plants, keep the mulch under the base clear of weeds so it dries out and getting rid of anything weak-looking is what I'm trying. I decided to keep the bark-mulch as it seems to be drying out faster than soil.



Good job I took this photo - just spotted a diseased orange bit there at the base.

But I'm pleased the plants seem to be looking a lot healthier now: the older leaves are plump and glossy and the newer growth is a nice perky light green.
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