There is nothing more annoying or frightening than seeing your lush and green vegetation get ruined by disease. While foliage and leaves can be affected by insects or weather conditions in summer, leaf spot pathogens are the more likely culprits you will encounter every season. Today our landscaping Milford, CT experts are here today to offer you a crash course on leaf spot disease – probably the most commonplace foliage disease in the area.
What is Leaf Spot Disease?
This is a foliage disease caused by pathogenic fungi living on dead leaves. Once they infiltrate the leaves’ structure, the fungi grow and expand destroying the leaves. The visible signs of the infection are represented by brown, black, tan or reddish spots or blotches on the leaves’ surfaces. Sometimes the necrotic areas are also surrounded by purple or red borders.
Another huge symptom of such a fungal infection is partial to complete defoliation that cannot be otherwise explained by draught, pollution, insects, extreme weather conditions, and so on.
Leaf spot disease is favored by humid, cool, wet weather in spring. Fungi spores are spread by spring wind and rain from the dead leaves on the ground onto the freshly growing leaves in trees and shrubs. Once they get into contact with the new leaves, they grow and start killing foliage. Even if summer follows a dry, warm spring, you are not out of the woods completely. Our landscaping Milford, CT specialists recommend you make a thorough evaluation of your growing spring and summer vegetation to catch a potential infection as soon as possible.
What Trees and Shrubs are Affected by Leaf Spot Disease?
Almost all local trees and shrubs can get affected by this disease. Oak, maple, sycamore, ash, walnut, hickory and horse chestnut are the most common hosts for the causal fungi. While coniferous trees can suffer severe damage caused by this fungus, they are rarely attacked in two consecutive years. Such fungi can also affect your elm trees, rhododendrons (albeit with milder effects), as wells as hawthorns like Paul’s scarlet and the English varieties.
There are also more vulnerable plants to this type of fungi than others. They are usually the trees and shrubs that endured stress: transplanted trees and shrubs, vegetation that was or is still affected by pests, vegetation not having enough soil moisture or fertilizers to fight off the fungi.
Trees and shrubs impacted by this disease won’t die, but defoliation and foliage necrosis can lead to further vulnerabilities to other stress factors like draught, seasonal pests and weeds, pruning and trimming, and so on.
How Can You Control the Leaf Spot Disease?
Spraying the infected leaves with chemicals is seldom the good choice, as the fungus has already played its number on the foliage. As usual, the best treatment is prevention: the complete removal of dead, wet, diseases fallen leaves from your lawn and garden during fall, winter, and spring.
However, if you just spotted an infection, call your local landscaping Milford, CT specialists for an assessment and an intervention strategy to keep the fungi from spreading.