HELP!!!

[Marlys]

It's been hot! - humid! - raining allot! & sure enough, Crown Rot has hit hard H 'Last Dance' is being brutally attack by destructive exudate & surrounded by little round spores that spread this terrible disease. LD has been so perfect

I treated the plant with bleach water after removing the affected petioles that went into the burn pile. I thought for a few days, maybe that would work. But today more petioles are rotted off & the spores are brazenly doing their nasty deed

No retail garden center here carries PCNB / flutolanil / Contrast. I'm so sad I plan to try the bleach water again tomorrow but I'm not very confident it will help at all.

This is the 4th huge beautiful plant I have lost in my garden to Crown Rot (Southern Blight). Apparently all my efforts of destroying the plant material, removing the soil, treating the holes & surrounding soil with bleach water, & leaving the area baren just hasn't worked. I was afraid it would attack my huge H 'Leading Lady' next but H 'Last Dance' got it instead.

I'm so sad

MM

[barbara]

I feel for you

[Chris_W]

Sorry to hear it Marlys.

Last year I picked up a Bayer product that contains Tebuconazole and is specifically labeled for Southern Blight. I treated at the first sign of a problem, after cleaning up all of the fungus and removing the soil by hand (I got to it before the spores ripened to orange) and then doused it with the Bayer product twice, repeated again a month later, and never saw it again last year. This year haven't seen any problems either, yet we've been into the 90s already too. I treated once this spring also.

I've seen two products with this - one is Bayer disease control and the other is Bayer all-in-one rose care. I picked up a lot last fall at 60% off at the local hardware store, but they carry it again this year too. Hopefully you can find it and start treating everything.

Good luck!

Chris

[HostaDesigner]

I, too, have had problems with southern blight. I had it show up in a new part of the garden in some seedlings. I mixed up a new fungicide I bought called Prostar and poured it as a soil drench. It was absolutely and completely stopped in its tracks. Prostar is specifically labelled for SB and has a mix rate specifically aimed at curing the problem. So far so good.

http://www.cdms.net/ldat/ld24E003.pdf

[jerry_br]

Prostar and Contrast are difficult to find locally, but you can get from ebay. I believe the sellers name epestcontrol or something similar and it is their online store.

Hope this helps.

Jerry

[DBoweMD]

When I had it in Aphrodite about 3 or 4 years ago, I did the drench with bleach 10%, and it worked. Don't lose hope!

[LucyGoose]

Wow.....soooo sorry.....

[Linda P]

Oh, that's so frustrating! I used the Bayer rose product on somthing that looked like Southern Blight last year, and never saw anything of it again. Hope it works for you.

Linda P

[eastwood2007]

Alot of the Bayer products are available at Walmart....

[ViolaAnn]

Marlys - I'm sorry to hear of your problems and hope you are able to find something to help.

Ann

[renaldo75]

I couldn't find the Bayer products last year at my local [22 miles away] 'Super' Wal-Mart, but I did find one of them 90 minutes away at the real Super Wal-Mart in Council Bluffs. You may need to make a trip to Des Moines to find what you need.

[vawildflower]

This a problem I deal with alot here in southern va. Last year I called Bob Soleberg and he recommended a product called "terrachlor" which is a fungicide for fungus Sclerotium rolfsii. It is expensive and you have to get online. I treated many of mine with a bleach solution and all my tools as well. This has helped many hosta if caught in time. This year I did a preventative bleach solution in hopes of keeping some of it at bay. Also, if you stress your plant with as little water as possible, it will help. Then water when the temps cool down a bit. I would use the fungicide that Chris referred to cause they do help.

wild

[baja220]

I just did a search on Ebay for the sellers name mentioned, Prostar and Contrast and found nothing.

I do have the Bayer Disease Control and I've used it twice, but I'm still loosing hostas. I just planted a Blue Shadows in May and a few day's ago I noticed it's leaves laying on the ground. It looks like SB except I don't see the little orange balls. I'm at a lose this year. I've never had so many hostas rot before.

[baja220]

Found it!! It's epestsolutions on Ebay. Here's a link.

Prostar Link

[Marlys]

Chris & All -

I found the Bayer product 'All-in-One' Rose & Fower Care (concentrate) 3 Systemic Products in One
Fertilizer-feeds & renews / Insect Control / Disease Control
(9-14-9) at a Farm & Home' store.

Active Ingredients:
Tebuconzole 0.80%
Imidacloprid 0.15% /chemical name for Merit insecticide
Other Ingredients 99.05%
No Spraying - Mix & Pour at Plant Base
"Diseases Controlled" Black Spot, Powdery Mildew, Rust and Southern Blight" use on roses, flowers, iris, hibiscus, azaleas, camelias, rhododendrons, & other shrubs.

I mixed it up & poured it around the base of the plant with Ron holding the leaves up out of the way.
Only 2 got broken.
Then it rained another inch that night. (3" over the weekend - again)
I removed all affected petioles (again)
& removed the surface soil in those areas (again).

Now I'm hoping it really works.

I soaked my little shovel in bleach water for 1/4 hour after using it there.

We put the affect plant materials & soil in a big black plastic bag & burned them in the fire pit with some sticks.

Trudy says the bleach thing has been working for her & apparently it works for Dr. Dave but not for me.

Keeping my fingers crossed.

MM

[SUEDIA]

Marlys,
Sure hope it works this time. I have been hearing about all the rain southern part of Iowa has been getting, not good for waterlogged soil. What a year we have had. I really feel your pain when your have one that is not doing well, just like having sick kids. All the time you spend tending to them. But I sure did enjoy looking at them when we were down to visit your gardens.
Take Care,
Sue

[Marlys]

Bayer product 'All-in-One' Rose & Flower Care (concentrate) 3 Systemic Products in One
Fertilizer-feeds & renews / Insect Control / Disease Control
(9-14-9)

I have not been very hopeful that my H 'Last Dance' would be saved from Southern Blight 'Crown Rot' just by dumping the above product / chemicals around the base of the plant especially since it has done nothing but rain since the day I applied the product. I'm talking 5 or 7 or more inches of rain over several days (not all at once like allot of areas in IA).

This morning (no rain) I finally decided I better go check out what was happening under the canopy of 'Last Dance' leaves down at the base of the petioles. To my surprise it looked good. Only 2 petioles had dried up brown streakes where they had been being attacked by the Southern Blight otherwise everything looked good & healthy.

Thank you all for your concern & helpful information. I'm a happy gardener. And the Bayer product was affordable too @ just over $8.00.

I'll keep us all updated but at this time things look GOOD

MM

[eastwood2007]

That is really good news, Marlys. I'm glad you were able to stop the advance of the Southern Blight. It is so heartbreaking when something is attacking and can't be stopped!

Thanks for letting us all know how it worked out, too. I think I'll pick up some of that Bayer product just to have on hand...just in case.

[DBoweMD]

I found Souther Blight on a young Frances Williams last night, only two leaves were yellow. I did the 10% bleach drench over the area and on the adjacent plants. I took pics of it so will post them when I get a chance.