Sperry: What’s occurring to my Texas mountain laurel?

Sperry: What’s occurring to my Texas mountain laurel?

Published 8:32 am Sunday, December 28, 2025

Dear Neil: My Texas mountain laurel has been dying again trunk by trunk. I’m questioning if it’s because of the deep freeze of some years in the past or if it’s from the drought. It appears to be spreading. Should I prune out the dying trunks?

A illness contaminated the trunks of my very own mountain laurel 25 years in the past. I imagine it may need been Ganoderma gall. I keep in mind small conks extending out from the trunk. My tree went down just about all at one time.

Your plant seems to be prefer it might have verticillium wilt. It will get into the vascular system of mountain laurels and kills stems out one after the other. There is clear decay in that previous stalk that’s embedded within the dying trunk. 

It seems to be just like the plant nonetheless has good vigor in a few of its trunks. I’d counsel you ship samples of the declining tissues (together with the previous stem) in addition to your pictures and inquiries to the Plant Disease Clinic at Texas A&M in order that they’ll tradition the wooden to find out precisely what pathogen is concerned and provide you with their very professional recommendation. You can discover their sampling and mailing info at their web site. Wait till after the vacations to ship samples.

Dear Neil: Regarding waxleaf ligustrums – I learn your column as we speak. I hope you’ll be extra grudging in recommending them. Birds unfold the seeds to waterways and the vegetation crowd out our native species.

Before you throw me beneath the bus, make sure you’re quoting me accurately. Waxleaf ligustrum, as generally referred to within the nursery business, is the sterile plant that grows to eight or 10 ft. tall. It produces fruit, however they don’t germinate. For a long time it was used as a major basis plant throughout Texas. That’s till chilly winters within the 70s prompted individuals to search for extra winter-hardy options, usually hollies. The two ligustrums which are horrifically invasive are Japanese ligustrum and privet. Japanese ligustrum is often confused with waxleaf ligustrum, even by plant taxonomists. It has a lot bigger leaves and grows to twenty ft. tall. It bears very massive clusters of purple fruit that birds devour after which “plant” throughout their neighborhoods. The varied privets have been used for many years as hedges between homes. Their leaves are a lot smaller as are the berries. However, the birds are drawn to it like virtually no different fruit, and so they have unfold each it and the Japanese ligustrum by wetlands and woodlands throughout the jap third of the state. But waxleaf ligustrum is an harmless bystander surrounded by dangerous actors. Don’t blame it for being invasive. It is just not.

Dear Neil: Thank you for addressing my drawback of rabbits consuming my dwarf Burford hollies. I had truly thought of utilizing rooster wire to discourage them. But you didn’t reply my query about whether or not the broken vegetation will develop again or whether or not I might want to change them.

I’m sorry I didn’t deal with it. I actually haven’t any approach of figuring out. If they have been eaten again badly it’s attainable they may have been so disfigured by the rabbits that they might haven’t any vigor to regrow. As you could recall, our son’s vegetation have been additionally attacked. All however considered one of his rebounded fairly properly, however one was misplaced within the course of. You’ll know by March or early April. If you don’t wish to wait till then, you could find good replacements even by the winter. It’s a nursery staple merchandise 12 months a yr.

Dear Neil: I’ve a number of viburnums whose leaves are coated in a mildew-looking movie. My dogwood, fig, and redbud leaves developed brown splotches, then your entire leaf drops off with out ever turning the brilliant crimson (within the case of the dogwood) I had hoped for fall. My cucumbers developed an analogous sickness and died a lot too early. I imagine I’ve a common fungus drawback. I’ve sprayed with a fungicide previously, however that killed the vegetation. Help!

If a doctor and veterinarian have been introduced with an analogous set of sicknesses for people and their pets, they might most likely not assume it to be a worldwide illness. They would begin to type by the people one after the other to find out the reason for every drawback. It’s the exact same with vegetation. It’s very uncommon for 2 or three vegetation to go down with one illness (not to mention the checklist you gave). Powdery mildew might have an effect on viburnums, though I’ve not seen it. Redbuds generally have innocent leaf spots by late summer time. So will figs, particularly in the event that they’ve gotten too dry. Dogwoods battle with warmth and poor soils and which may have been the issue, however all that is simply guessing since I’ve no pictures in any respect. 

Fall colour this yr was dismal total, so I wouldn’t have count on a lot out of your dogwood. Mine have been bleak, too. And cucumbers get bitter in the event that they ripen in scorching climate. And the vegetation can go down with powdery mildew, or spider mites can flip them tan. Spraying with a fungicide that was labeled for all these totally different vegetation shouldn’t have executed any harm in any respect until you combined it on the fallacious focus.

Dear Neil: My Meyer lemon is roofed in black mildew. It doesn’t get direct daylight, however it does get good air circulation. Can or not it’s saved?

What you’re seeing is often known as black sooty mildew. It’s a secondary invader that reveals up after a sticky honeydew residue is left behind by aphids, scale, or (generally within the case of citrus) whiteflies. It is primarily aesthetic. It doesn’t kill the lemon. It simply makes it look ugly. To eliminate it you should first use an insecticide or different technique of eliminating the pest that left the honeydew. I often take a tender cotton rag or a few tender sponges and rubbing alcohol and wipe the mess off the leaves. That often controls it. You might additionally discover a home plant insecticide and spray the plant on a shaded patio or beneath a tree earlier than you convey it again indoors. 

— Have a query you’d like Neil to contemplate? Mail it to him in care of this newspaper or electronic mail him at [email protected]. Neil regrets that he can’t reply to questions individually.