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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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