Katie, to see your images you need to give us your log in and password for the URL you posted. I wonder if there is a spot in your account you can make you album 'public' rather than 'private' or give us a different URL to allow us to see your images?

Katie,

Sure sounds like spider mites to me. If you have a magnifying glass of some sort take one of the small leaves and look at the underside of it. These are almost impossible to see with the naked eye. Or you can take a leaf and hold it over a piece of white paper and tap it several times. If there are spider mites on it you should be able to see the specks on the paper. I have 4 plants right now with a bad infestation and am loosing the battle with them. Persistence is the key here.

HTH,

Roger
South of Chicago

Sorry, I'm no good with graphics and don't have a digital camera. Trying again. Thanks for your patience.

I swear there are no spider mites on these plants (good suggestion, thanks). My eyes are weird, and one of them is like a microscope with 10x vision without my glasses. I never need a magnifying glass. But I tried the piece of paper thing anyway and there just isn't anything except those scattered aphids.

If you can see these photos I'll ask my neighbor to take some more recent pics, but it will be a couple of days before we get our act together. I wish the brugs still looked as good as they did in these photos. That last flowering was devastating.

We have some Bayer Rose and Garden systemic here. Maybe I should give that a try. I hate to use anything except soap but I'm clutching at last straws.

Here is a link that might be useful: brugs, second try

I've never seen damage like that before but it doesn't look like something that's caused by an insect. Have you ever tried taking a cutting, removing all the foliage and seeing how it grows? I wonder if the foliage would still look like that? Maybe it's something in the soil. I'd be interested in hearing what would cause that. Sorry I can't be of any help.
Karyn

I didn't think it was insects either, especially snce I couldn't find any at first. It looks more like a severe nutritional problem.

No, I haven't taken any cuttings. I guess I could give it a try. But I don't have anywhere to plant them except in the same spot, and I'm not going to keep them in pots. The idea was to provide a wall of brugs to screen that side of the yard.

The older brugs were here when I moved in, and now they have the same damage as the new plants which they never have before. So what has changed? We removed a medium size tree so instead of being in nearly complete shade they get sun from mid-morning to mid-afternoon. I added a couple of potato vines to the new fence but I don't see how they could be poisoning the brugs when they're the same family. The only new thing to the older plants is that they finally got some plant food, first time ever, and that was after the problem started.

The smallest plant is only a foot tall and it's the last to have the leaf problem, so I think whatever it is, is down deep. Today's inspiration is that the lower roots may be dying from lack of (ground) water. I've been using a soaker hose for several hours when I watered, only every few days since we have hard clay soil and I didn't want the water to pool and cause root rot. But we only had 4 inches of rain (So. Cal.) last winter and with a 50 foot pine tree ten feet away probably the possibility of water pooling anywhere is remote.

Sorry to ramble on, these plants have me talking to myself.

Is it possible that they are sunburned? The one change you made was moving the tree that shaded them. My brugs do not like the sun at all. They get early morning sun and even then they wilt all up until the sun moves. Just a thought.
Marcie

I agree with Marcie. Mid-morning to mid-afternoon sunlight is some of the hottest of the day here in California. Earlier morning and/or late afternoon sun would be better for them...

Mike

Yes, it's possible. I don't know what variety they are and how sensitive they are to sun. The flowers look salmon to me, but some might call them peach. Actually the older plants didn't look that terrific when they were in almost full shade, either, but they rarely got any water then so they didn't have much to be happy about.

As a rule we have cloud cover until late morning or early afternoon and this planter is in full shade by mid-afternoon so my initial concerns were that they still wouldn't have enough sun. This summer we've had blue sky in the early morning about 50% of the time, unusual for us. Maybe it is too much sun, but they never wilt at all. If that's the case they're going to die unless we get a lot of cloud cover and all I can do is take cuttings or buy new plants, which would end up in the same planter.

The branches at the top of the plants do seem more effected than the bottom branches. It seems like a good time to go for frequent watering.

Thanks for your input and I'd welcome more. I'm still hoping someone has had this exact problem and identified it (is this the way sunburn looks?), or someone else has a good guess.

Katie: I'm no brug expert - in fact I'm growing my first this year, but I have been gardening a long time. My first thought on looking at your pictures was to move them. Get them out of that dirt and that location. But you said that wasn't an option. My next thought was some sort of viral or bacterial disease. I know you dont want to use chemicals, but if it were my plants, I'd bite the bullet and treat with some Ortho that covers bacterial and viral diseases. Another option is to pot up a cutting and see if the disease carrys over. If not, then its probably location and/or soil and you'll have some decisions to make. If it does, then its probably some sort of systemic disease and the Ortho should take care of it.

Good luck and let us know how things go.

Digging them up ... it's a total mass of roots. My neighbor has a couple of large bushes near the fence, besides that pine tree, and he never waters. Never. They can wait until winter, or send their roots toward my yard. I'd need an axe, and it's too much. Plus there's simply no where else to put them - we're planted to the max here.

So the only real option would be cuttings that stayed in pots and I can't stand the thought of moving large pots from one lousy location to another on ancient broken walkways (my landlord is an angel but this place gets no mainenance). This is really my only shot at brugs.

I'll try Ortho, I guess, thanks for the suggestion. I was trying to clean them up today and I see they're forming new buds again, probably for the last time if the Ortho doesn't work.

I'd sure like to identify the exact problem. With all the people on this forum it seems like someone might have seen this before ...

Why don't you take a few cuttings and just keep them in water, at least until you get enough new foliage for comparison. You could always toss the cuttings in a compost pile (if unaffected) or give/trade them away. Chemicals might cause more harm then good to a stressed plant. Good luck.
Karyn
PS: When my brugs get sunburned it looks similar. The leaves get blanched spots, thin out, become yellowed and finally drop but the edges don't curl up like yours do.

As it happens I was thinking along the same lines and chickened out on the chemicals last night. I gave them another long session with the soaker hose and just sprayed the aphids. This morning we have good cloud cover so they won't get any hot sun. I'll see how they look tomorrow. If I do go to chemicals I want to be sure they're soaking wet first.

What happens with mine is the edges stop growing. Then as the leaves get bigger and the edges don't the leaves curl.

Thanks for your input!

You may need to get them out of that area. Can you make a raised bed elsewhere and just pot them up in new soil for the time being?
I am wondering if it is some type of fungal infection. If it started out on one or a few and then spread and if it has been rainy or wet around the plants it could be fungal. Do you see any powdery (not necessarily white) substance on the dried parts of the leaves? I had a fungal problem earlier this summer and my leaves looked sort of like those. It can spread fast. I used Daconil (strong toxic stuff but it worked) but there may be a better organic way if that's what it is. Does anyone else think this could be fungal? Hard to tell from the photos.
~SJN

I spent a good deal of time yesterday branch by branch, leaf by leaf. There's nothing that looks like a fungus, really nothing at all. The scattered aphids, an occasional spider, and on two leaves some Giant Whitefly eggs, nothing unusual about that!

I'm not even going to try digging out plants this size. I might try a couple of cuttings, as a backup for a tree fern that may have to go. A cutting now will be five feet tall in six months and they're a lot easier to deal with. If I had a good place for the current brugs it would be different, but I don't. A good suggestion, it just wouldn't work well for me.

I need to get some better, more recent photos. I'll see if my neighbor is available to take some more shots and post asap. I really appreciate all the input!

One other option would be to take a few leaves to your county extension agent or to the university ag dept. locally, they will have qualified professionals that can correctly diagnose your problem so you can get the right treatment going for them immediately. Make sure to tell them the symptoms, growing conditions and what you have used for fertilizing, chemicals etc. I have found these agencies to be very helpful in the past.
~SJN

I could give that a try if I can find a day to get away from the computer for a bit (I work two jobs at home, both in crises). Good idea.

I got some updated pics, although not quite what I wanted to show (Give me that camera!) If anyone wants another look.

Also, I found a good picture of what I thought were aphids, see next post.

Thanks again!

Here is a link that might be useful: more brugs

My 2 cents worth....
You have several issues here.
I start by saying keep your cats from using the soil around your Brugs as a litter box. That is not good for you working with them nor for your plants.

1) clay soil binds up nutrients thereby not allowing the plants to pick them up. Try and amend the soil ( even the top few inches) if you can using compost or any organic substance.

2)You pine tree is also using up the nutrients your Brugs need as well as likely changing the PH of your soil around them with their shedding of the needles. Can you take a soil sample to your extension agent to have the PH tested??? Brugs prefer an almost neutral PH.

3) Brugs are Heavy feeders at the best of times and if they have been in the same location for any length of time, if you have not been supplementing them they will have drained the soil of nutrients. Your newer growth in the pic #DSC00276 looks much better ( on the tops of the other pics looks better as well and you said you fed them recently.... it shows up in the newer growth.

4) to go from almost full shade to midday sun for 4 hours will initially burn any Brug leaf if done in a hurry.
newer leaves developing will adjust and to look scalded and blistered.

In summery.....I think you need to:
- feed them a balanced fertilizer once a week,
-try to amend the soil if you can
-wait for the plants to shed those old leaves that look sunburned
-add lime to the soil if your PH is too acidic

I think your plants will recover over time.

The cats were very pleased with that planter when it had a lot of loose compost, but now it's a mass of roots and a cat can't dig a decent hole. They haven't used it since late last fall. They have a better planter now, and the plants there are doing great. Actually the only time there's been a conflict was when one cat liked to sleep on my pansies.

I'll try some more compost but I'm determined not to have a raised bed there again. I washes right down to a narrow sidewalk, and if I put in edging to hold back the soil it makes it more difficult to rake out the pine needles. I do get most of them out, although I don't know what pine roots under this bed may do to change the composition of the soil. We have tons of compost, but plant roots naturally prefer it to the clay, so whatever we do we can't turn over the soil much.

I tested the soil early in the spring and again a couple of weeks ago and near the top it's neutral ph. Who knows what's going on way down deep!

Initially there was no problem at all with the new leaves, only with the very largest. Since there are less large leaves all the time whatever this problem is, is now effecting the newer leaves too.

We are getting more sun than we usually do in the summer, more than I was planning on. We call it 'June gloom' and it's usually overcast most summer mornings so I expect sunny mornings this year are a good part of the problem. The lower parts of the plants have been less affected, but as all the large leaves are gone on the top branches now that's changing. I'm still not going to move them. The rest of the front yard gets more sun, and the back yard is planted with my neighbor's choices, to the max (he's in the house behind mine) and he doesn't like brugs. I don't think I'm going to convince that mine would be an appealing addition to his yard, either! Maybe I can rig some shade cloth over the smaller ones, that hadn't occured to me before.

Feeding has been irregular as I tried different things and then worried that it was all too much for them and left them alone for a while. It doesn't seem to make any difference. None of it helped, and it's been a slow, steady decline so I don't know if it hurt either. In fact, the leaves are utterly ignoring my efforts. The plants just respond with more flowers and then the leaves look worse.

I hope you're right that the plants will recover, and thanks for very much for your imput.

I'm now focusing on this bug, which no one on ABADS has identified so far. I thought it was a few aphids, but it flies really fast and it's zippy and I think there must be more of them than I realized. If anyone is good at pest ID there are some great pest pics at the attached URL. Mine doesn't have a name, but it's about half way down the page, to the right of the Golden Tortoise Beetle. Maybe I can hold it responsible for my plant damage, who knows what it does.

Here is a link that might be useful: my pest!

Ok looks like a couple of problems. Maybe a past mite problem,too much sun, lack of iron and sulpher. That is what my plants do and what they need when they look like that. I finally moved them to a shady area and removed all ugly leaves. They are looking great now. One kind of dumb thing I did was spray all mine with the butter milk and flour. It worked like charm. Who knows why but I just did my 2nd spray and will do another in 2 weeks.

Now if they were mine I would daily remove any leaves that were a little off color. Put some superthrive on them. I regularly well every other day go around my plants and remove any off color leaf. It is better for the plant to not have the infected leaf. They are super hardy and will grow back real quick. If the plant needs leaves it will grow them. I also pulled some like that up put into pots and they took off like gang busters. Then I replanted them.

Now for a reason. This has only happened with mite bitten plants and too much sun. The best thing I do is remove off color foliage and dispose of it in the trash. Your brug is not about to die but is waiting for the conditions to get right to take off. That is the way it works here. I just had a real nice bloom from my brugs that looked like your plants 6 weeks ago.

PS I see you are in z11. I have not had that problem with Grimaldies.

Jim

Buttermilk and flour. Somehow that had never occured to me. You can really get some mixture of those to go through a sprayer? There's a very hot post on ABADS (540 views so far)recommending 1 ml dishwashing detergent + 1.5 ml canola oil per litre of water for mites. Another in the same thread recommends "Dawn" dish detergent. Both claim the mites are gone in 24 hours. Except I don't have mites, but I do have those zippy little green things which might have the same effect.

There isn't a thing I can do about the sun since the brugs are in the shadiest part of the yard, but I can keep up the frequent water and try to get rid of those bugs and maybe that will get them through.

I have been stripping off the worst leaves, but every damaged leaf is just about all of them. I need to think about this. I suppose they wouldn't look much worse.

Prediction for tomorrow: 80 degrees and a cloudless blue sky (sigh). Trouble in paradise.

You would have to strain it with cloth to use a hand sprayer. I use a 30 gallon gas orchard sprayer. Adults are easy to kill its the eggs. There are a bunch of things that will kill adults. They are very weak and not armored like beetles or mealy bugs. Soaps , sticky stuff like oils and even sugar makes their bug life unbearable. I tried about 3 million beneficial nematodes on mine it did not help them so it was not nematodes.

Mine look so pretty when I remove the leaves and new fresh ones grow back in 2 weeks or less. I was pretty apprehensive the first time. Now I love to remove leaves it just seems to make them much healthier and grow quicker. There is a combination out there for your brugs. You will find it. I found mine. Regular 13-13-13, ironite and rock sulfur. I grow on almost pure white sand. With temps 90+ close to 100% humidity heat factors of 115 are normal for 3-4 months of the year. I have test areas. I do have some that may need to be rescued. They are in full sun all day. They have a massive root system but very few leafs and few flowers. In the fall if they survive I bet they will be the best performers and bloom through Christmas.

Now they are big plants. Maybe they do not need all the leaves for good photosynthesis. My shady brugs have massive leaves while the more sun ones have smaller leaves. I am an experimenter when it comes to plants if I have enough. If they just are not making leaves and you are still disappointed with them. Take the ugliest one and chop it off at about 18" and seal it where you cut. It will make leaves like crazy. You never know they may all need a spring pruning each year.

Jim