Monday, February 28, 2011

Out, Out Damned Spot!

Well, it has finally happened... after a full year of fooling around in the garden with little a care or bother in the world, never covering our mouths when we coughed, touching plants left and right without handwashing, leaving weeds all over the place and other general misbehavior.

Yes thats right, The Children of the Corm garden is... diseased.  Under quarantine.  Fungus coming out of our ears.

It all started on a brilliant warm muggy day last week when I went to my car like I do every day, and passed by the large jasmine vine (Trachelospermum jasminoides) I have growing over a 15 foot section of fencing.  Hmm, I said to self, why are those few leaves bright orange?  Eh, I'm in a hurry, I said to self.

The following day, also bloomed bright and humid and I looked at the ground outside the fence and noticed that the now pretty orange leaves were on the ground.   Hmmm, I said to self, must look into this when get chance.

Zoom by a week, because time flies, as they say, when you are not paying attention to your plants well-being, and there are now many many many orange leaves, even more on the ground, and every single other green leaf now has big spots.

The nursery confirmed that I had a major case of fungal leaf spot, and get this... the jasmine is going to lose ALL of its leaves.  Distressing under any circumstance, but considering this lovely (or formerly lovely) plant is supposed to be blooming in just over a month, this just sucks.

Decisive action has now been taken, (after a week of sloth, but lets not remind me).  The jasmine will undergo three separate 10 day apart drownings in fungicide... so will all plants near it.   So did the other jasmine on the other part of the fence just in case he even thinks about fraternizing.  I have bagged up the diseased leaves and will continue to do so.

Hopefully that will rid my garden of the pestilence.   Secondary action was also taken.  The nursery has instructed me to fertilize the plant like a maniac, every week until bloomtime in hopes of pushing up some new healthy greenery on what will shortly be a bunch of strappy twigs running all over the fence.

sniff.  He was sooo pretty last year, see?  now look.  I took a walk around town today noting that nobody else's jasmine seems to be a mess.   I passed dozens.  All of them green and leathery healthy as can be.  grrr.

Not only that but I'm back on the claritin.  The only thing I like about cold weather is it equals no claritin. Acho.  Meh.


  1. Dear Jess, Oh dear....major surgery for the Trachelospermum and will that mean a whole gardening season will pass by without flowers? This is the stuff of a horror story!!

    And, as always seems to happen to me [or rather my plants]those plants belonging to everyonelse seem absolutely fine with not a trace of fungus in sight. Life is not fair.

    But, there is hope....perhaps with your intensive care the Trachelospermum will come good after all. I certainly hope so!!

  2. Bummer! At least you caught it in time and are taking measures needed to save the poor thing. I wonder if the nursery told you why this poor Jasmine and not the other one. In other words what would cause such a scourge? I hope all is well in short order. Lesson learned. [And I think I'll go take a look at my Jasmine just to be safe.]

  3. I feel your pain and have always found that getting that anger out on the blog is great therapy. Good luck cause she is a beauty.

  4. I am sorry about the jasmine.... Did they tell you why your plant is so sick? I hope it recovers and behaves better in future:)
    You are on claritin already? I get spring allergies too.. Last year we had some unusual weather and my allergies got so bad I had to wear a mask.. I do hope I won't have to do it again - I can't say I enjoyed all the comments from people who saw me walking down the street.

  5. Oh my, darned warm and humid weather. I hate that fungus loves to take advantage of such conditions. I hope your jasmine responds well to it's intensive nursing care. Fertilizing the dickens out of it should help, and it's early enough in the season that you may still see some beautiful blooms this season. Good luck!

  6. I didn't even realize jasmine could get diseased like that! I hate to spray plants (just lazy, really). I hope it recovers and blooms like mad for you!

  7. so frustrating when a plant has a collapse like that just before blooming! Any reason for the fungus other than humidity?

  8. The nursery has good advice, but once infected to this extent, you usually just have to wait it out. The fertilizing will help kick start the new leaf out and make sure the area is cleaned of infected foliage.Good luck, and I agree, so sad.

  9. Thanks for commiserating everyone. The nursery did have a good idea what caused it. It is always humid here, but usually this time of year we are in the 60s not the high 70s. The culprit is that combined with birds. That was the first question they asked me "do you have a lot of birds hanging out in the trees"... it is migratory season here and there have been tens of thousands of them. Its been wild kingdom and it was really cool until this. So a combination of the birds having passed it on from the previous roost, with warm weather and a few good rains and voila, plant super infested.

  10. Ok, I am VERY opinionated about gardening and don't use fugicides, herbicides, etc. AND I never heavily fertilize an ailing plant. I care for it. Mulch with great manure and compost, feed lightly, and I mean lightly. New green that is heavily fertilized is a different color that insects view as a delicious green salad. You don't want a chemically dependent sickling. Just take your time and go gently.

    All good luck to you from an organic gardener in Calfiornia,

    Sharon Lovejoy Writes from Sunflower House and a Little Green Island

  11. Oh that's so sad Jess! It did look so lovely last year...

  12. hi Sharon, thanks for stopping by. All opinions are appreciate. While I can't go totally chemical free here (this climate is a tough one for it, you'll just have to trust me on this) I do my best to be mindful.

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  14. Oh my gosh! I have the same problem, and I've let it grow into an even worse condition-- the leaves are falling off! What type of fungicide and what type of fertilizer did you use? Did it work? Did it still end up loosing all of its leaves?

    1. What's different though is that I live in a dry, not at all humid place-- Los Angeles. I'm admittedly naive, but I would have thought that fungus isn't likely in this climate.