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- Armchair gardening this week is the rise and rise of fungal diseases in our gardens. My
Father only ever used sulphur forty years ago, but these days it’s simply not good
enough on its own.
- If you have been priding yourself at how your roses have continued to flower well into
winter, it is at a price and that is to be infected with Black Spot, Smut Fungi and
Mildews, which are fungal conditions, that spread quickly leaving black circles, black
sooty smut and various powdery residues or necrosis respectively on your rose leaves and
other plants in the presence of high humidity and mild moist conditions.
- Seldom a problem in Adelaide from September to May due to our dry atmosphere, but
increasingly due to over watering from micro-irrigation systems by gardeners. The solution
is to replace misters with drippers and locate them just above the ground and with no
mulch until November and remove it in early March. That way you control the humidity and
greatly reduce the incidence of fungal disease and not just on your roses.
- If you aim to keep misting roses and then resort to using fungicide sprays for
controlling out breaks and some folk do, because they want lots of flowers. Here’s
what is needed. While the systemic Triforine by Kendon™ is a wonderful spray for the
rose grower to use to control Black Spot, Moulds and Powdery Mildew, you need at least two
other contact fungicides in your arsenal to stay effective, because the fungi that cause
the marking on your leaves are cunningly adaptive and soon become immune to the
Triforine.
Use water-soluble sulphur sold locally as Microfine by CRC™ and Mancozeb by
Yates™ in rotation and they will give you a better control.
- There are even systemic fungicides, mostly used by commercial producers and not all are
sold in small packets for home gardeners, but if you have an extensive patch of roses or
any other plant that is prone to fungal disease, you may need to enquire about Bayleton by
Bayer™.
- Remove all dead leaves from underneath your roses and bury them deeply (since we cannot
burn in this area) then the over-wintering teleutospores and other sundry fungal spores
will not survive in your leaf litter to re-infest your emerging foliage in spring.
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