Thanks. The growing conditions, so far as I know, are ideal. Full sun most of the day, well-drained soil that my husband rototills before we plant each spring, and this year, we didn't have long, prolonged periods of wet weather, though we did have some weird weather in early April. Hot weather in the 90's for a couple of days, followed by very cold weather and 5 inches of snow. But it's been pretty normal since late April. the first year I planted things (2002) the ground had never had anything growing in it except grass. My husband rototilled an area next to our walkway out front and put in compost and some peat moss. I planted Proven Winners wave-like petunias, marigolds, zinnias, and red salvia. The petunias thrived and so did the marigolds, but the zinnias and salvia got eaten by bugs. 2002 was a good summer: warm, in the 80's and low 90's, with the right amount of rain. But 2003 and 2004 were cold and wet summers, esp. 2003. Most of my annuals got the wilt disease, except allysum and the marigolds. The salvia didn't get it, but they still got eaten by bugs. The summers since then have been pretty good, but I have not been able to grow petunias since, except on one small, narrow side of the walkway garden. I have 4 oblong concrete stepping stones leading from the walkway, over the garden, and onto the lawn. On the left side, the garden is narrow, and for some reason, the wilt disease doesn't affect the petnunias, 2 of them, that I plant there every year. Just on the other side of the stones, where the garden is much longer. There they get sick and die. The only thing I can think of is, that when it rains, lime leaches from the stepping stones into the soil, and kills any fungi that is in the soil, preventing the petunias from getting sick. I have them planted on the left side of the garden this year. So far they are fine. However, this year, some of my plants have been affected by a leaf mold of some kind, that turns the leaf edges brown or puts brown blotches on the leaves. Sigh. However, I have sprayed with Physan20 and it has helped a lot. I have never had leaf spot on annuals before.

IMHO, has nothing to do with Verticellium from what I see. Just doesn't look like the pattern. The leaf spots are likely due to wet weather IMHO, giving something an advantage over the tree. Leaves are rarely perfect this time of year, so unless it gets allot worse, I would not worry about the spots at this point. While I don't know if jean has the right pathogen (would require more extensive testing(, I do think they have the right ideal. Namely that it is something that got into a small wound etc. Your pictures seem to chow that it is working top downward. As for what to do about it, as indicated before, it looks like your doing exactly what needs to be done. That is pruning out to well below the affected area, with proper disposal of pruned material (i.e. burned or in the trash, but not in compost). As for the mulch, it probable has nothing to do with it. However I will say this about cypress mulch. From what I have been told, in many cases this mulch is obtained by removing entire tree from the swamp ecosystem for no other purpose than to make mulch. At this point the ecosystem is often so disturbed that seedling cypress do not survive. It is for this reason I don't use cypress mulch any longer. Arktrees

hard w/o a pic here in MI.. we are in severe drought .. shall we presume you are watering properly??? ken

looks like either a black spot or bacterial leaf spot. here is a link that may help you. take the leaves that are infected and remove and distroy them. Here is a link that might be useful: black spot