Hello all, I have been having the same issues. Let me recount my story for you. I planted zucchini eight ball squash, yellow crooked neck squash, and butternut squash. They were all doing awesome and producing a lot of fruit. Then the snails arrived. They were eating all my fruit so I bought some natria slug and snail killer. Worked like a charm. I was watering the plant for 10 minutes 2 times a day, in the morning and in the evening. This brought out the white mold on the leaves. I tried using a milk and water mixture to spray the leaves as well as cutting off all the infected leaves. This kind of worked, but I have been battling it for 2 months, but not seriously trying. I cut the watering back to 1 time a day in the morning for 10 minutes. Recently I have switched it to 3 times a week for 10 minutes. But what I have noticed is that the new leaves yellow and quickly turn brown and die. What would be causing this? I have checked for vine borers by slitting open some leaf stems but I found nothing. Here are some more pictures. Whole garden New green leaves, yellow on the outside and dead leaves around the plant Lemon cucumber plants. Started out great and now leaves started yellowing and just now they are starting to brown Heres is a little bug hat I've seen around my plants...it looks like a discolored lady bug. Anything to worry about? Thanks! This post was edited by paperslammer on Fri, Sep 5, 14 at 11:27

Applying salt (NaCl) is perfect! ....... as an example of a decidedly bad idea. Sodium (Na) is an essential element for normal growth, but it becomes toxic very quickly when it exceeds appropriate (extremely low) levels. Salt also raises the level of dissolved solids in the soil solution, which makes it more difficult for the plant to take up water and the nutrients dissolved in water. There might be a handful of terrestrial plants that grow near bodies of saltwater or in saline soils, but they are few and the proclivity would be well-known if it was a landscape plant used as commonly as hibiscus. No plant expert would suggest applying table salt to landscape plants. Check carefully for mites. They usually affect older and lower leaves first. Are you fertilizing? Any idea what your soil has/lacks in the way of nutrients? Hibiscus stands out as something of an exception insofar as its nutritional wants are concerned. It likes more K than N and only VERY small amounts of P. the RATIO of a fertilizer for hibiscus in containers would be somewhere very close to 6:1:10. Since how your soil tests out impacts how you fertilize, We have no idea what's appropriate for trees in the ground, If your soil leans toward sand/sandy loam, it's likely the ratio above would be close. Do you understand the difference between a fertilizer's RATIO and it's NPK %s? An example will probable explain, in case you don't know. 20-20-20 and 5-5-5 are both 1:1:1 ratio fertilizers. 9-3-6 is a 3:1:2 ratio, and 12-2-20 would be a 6:1:10 ratio. Nutritional deficiencies of the mobile nutrients (N,P,K,Cl,Z,Mo) show up in older leaves and leaves closest to the trunk. When you planted out, did you bare root the plant (best to do)? Or, did you simply separate the plant from the pot and drop it in a planting hole? Do you have a nematode problem where you live? Bayer 3-in-1 for Insect Disease and Mite Control is a better choice of product and should be used according to package instructions, not halved. To me, it looks like over or under-watering (symptoms the same) or nutritional, possibly insects (mites). If you're watering while you can easily detect moisture in soil surrounding roots, it raises the probability of over-watering, so cut back. If every time you check the soil is bone dry, things would point toward under-watering. I'm in MI, so can't be of much help in the watering dept. BTW - does your home have a water softener? If yes, is it an ionic exchange system (requires salt), and has water at the hose bib been routed around the softener (if you have one)? Al

Carolyn: Thanks for responding. I'd love it if you could figure out what's going on. I plan to see if my county extension can help, too, but I can't get to a phone during their hours for a few more days yet. I don't have a measurement for the humidity, unfortunately. I can say that in my house, a drink with ice develops condensation, my hair does not get staticy easily, and when the outside temp is around 20 or lower, my double-hung windows have condensation in a one-inch strip just above the joint between upper and lower windows. Until this week, I had the grow light sitting on a milk crate, so the light was hitting the plants from straight-on, sunset style. I finally got my ceiling beams located and some hardware installed and the light has been pointing down for about 4 days. It was when I moved things around in order to hang the light that I saw the white patches and how bad the aphids were in some spots. I've been spraying with soapy water so much now, the humidity may have increased! (Only one tomato had a lot of aphids, but I'm spraying that guy and all the non-tomato plants twice a day now) Thanks a lot for any help you can give, zeke

Are these older leaves from the bottom of the plant or new top growth? If older leaves it could just be natural death of the lower leaves as always happens. Otherwise given all the yellowing, likely some over-watering, perhaps some nutrient deficiency, even some early blight. Your location/zone info on your post would help as it would at least give us a hint as to old the plants are and what your weather has been like - all of which contribute to problems. Also need to know if they are in containers or in the ground? Dave