Joe, the two most common diseases doing what you are seeing are septoria leaf spot and blackberry rust. My guess would be the former since it is more common. My recollection is dormant lime-sulphur is the best treatment. Lime-sulphur is organic. Since you may be past dormant season you could still spray a less potent strength I expect but look up some guidelines for treatment of the disease with Google to get the details. But, before you do anything search for pictures of various blackberry leaf diseases and figure out which one you have for certain. Then search for treatments for that. If you are not sure, ask more questions here :-) Scott

Ann you need to have your lights at 8-10" from the top of your plants. The fuzzy stuff - fungus - usually means that your humidity is too high. Dead tissue - your brown spots - is getting consumed by the fungi. There should be some moderation - you do not want your plants die - but if they die - order some more leaves of the same variety - and wait until the end of the winter - so they do not get frozen next time. Check with the fellow AV lovers in Amarillo - do you belong to the club? May be somebody already has this variety - and will give you a healthy leaf. And again - get the healthiest leaf off your plant in question - and put it down for rooting - just in case. Do not get upset - there is always some loss - but if you share your plants with your friends - you can always start it again. Good luck Irina

It looks like a fungal infection called leaf spots, caused by too much humidity and-or overhead watering. I would try to control it by making the environment less humid and using good cleaning practices. There is no way to control humidity from storms but you can control waterings by making the sprinkler water early in the mornings. If you do overhead watering by hand, you can water the soil instead early in the mornings. If your mulch is often moist or wet, you are watering too much. You can switch to water when a finger inserted to a depth of 4" feels almost dry or dry. Separate shrubs from each other to improve air flow, which will reduce humidity levels. You can also throw in the trash plant debris found under the bush, replace the mulch with new mulch when more than a third of the leaves are affected, dispose in the trash all the dried out blooms and dried out leaves in the Fall. You can also try to use fungicides but they can be expensive and we are so close to the end of the growing season (when the leaves dry out anyway) that it is a toss as whether one should apply it or not. I guess if you have a considerable number of leaves infected, you should replace the mulch (it is probably full of spores) and spray sulfur-based fungicides on the leaves (top and bottom) as well as in the stems. If you have an organic regimen in your garden, consider applying a copper fungicide. Affected leaves will not be cured back to all green by fungicides. A drip irrigation system can help reduce this problem too. Note: in order to minimize spread of the fungal infection, it is best to throw away in the trash the dried out leaves, not in the compost pile (if you have one). Do the same with the spent blooms when you deadhead (throw them in the trach). Luis

Generally speaking - and I'm no expert here, just have a few houseplants and have been learning a lot from this forum - some plants such as the softer leaves ones will show their displeasure and happiness quite quickly by wilting or perking up quite quickly. But I think some of the thicker leaved firmer plants can look ok for some time even when declining (more water reserves, stronger leaf structure,etc), for example sansevieria (snake plants), so maybe rubber plants are like this too. What I'm trying to say is it may have been going downhill for longer than the two weeks of obvious symptoms. Plus it's possible really high numbers of fungus gnat larvae could have munched on the really fine feeder roots. Although I thought the roots looked good overall. I don't know about the white bugs, you'd need to be sure what they were to know if they damaged it. And the (necessary) repotting was another stress on the plant. Many factors to consider, playing plant detective. It may well be the additive effect of several things. You've had lots of good advice from the experienced people above, on light and soils etc. Personally I would now put it in a bright warm draft-free spot inside, and wait. Don't let the roots dry right out while they're recovering but don't let the soil stay damp either. To achieve this, try using a spray bottle of water on a gentle jet to target where the pruned rootball is, and at the times when you do water more thoroughly leave the pot tilted at 45 degrees (even 30 degrees will help) for 15-20 minutes afterwards and then sit it on towels or paper pushed up against the drain holes for a couple hours. This isn't to remove all the water you just put in, it is to reduce the saturated layer that occurs at the bottom, the "perched water table" (yes, it has a name) Dont fertilise until you see new leaves growing and don't sunburn it by putting it in direct sunshine outside if it's not used to it. Good luck!