He had his feelings hurt and he's mad at me :-( Sorry, but the breadcasting of sad 'ol husband's tales is a bit of a pet peeve for me. Nita, a visit (or call) to your local extension office will help you find out how to take samples and get them sent to the state lab. Some state universities have had to severely cut back on their services but hopefully you can get some help. Lab tests can be just as important in eliminating possibilities as in clinical diagnosis. The problem with something like this is that it could be a combination of things as has been suggested. You'd be fascinated by the interrelationships between nutrition, environment, pathogen, and other pests. You've stated that this occurs every year. Have you observed problems with any other garden plants? Do you live in an area where nematodes are a known problem? In which state do you live? I guess you can see that we all love a mystery!

Never have had a spot of mildew on my Starfire - of course I garden on heavy wet clay so they never really dry out completely and I'm in zone 5 Michigan! Lovely color and good grower, gets some rebloom on side shoots. Planted in spring 2005, bought from local nursery. Also have Bright Eyes (pink with red eyes) - repeat every thing above :) except planted in 2003. I actually have this planted with David, which overlaps Bright Eyes bloomtime, but David starts a week or so later. David's flower heads usually are bigger than BE and slightly taller for me (of course David is to the right and somewhat in front of BE!) LOL

There are many different pathogens which can cause the kind of leaf spotting seen in the photos. Some varieties of rhododendron are more susceptible than others, but all are prone to infection, especially in years with cold, wet springs. These infections rarely threaten the plant's overall health to a serious degree, but are unsightly. A broad spectrum fungicide applied as a spray just as the new leaves are emerging may help as will systemic type treatments in early spring. All in all, though, most people growing rhododendrons on a non-commercial basis just learn to live with the problem. The semi-circular notches on the leaf edges are likely from weevils. The bottom yellow orange colored leaves are typical of rhododendron leaves about to be naturally shed.

Yes. Some of my phlox is fine, some (not just the one pictured) isn't. It's a mystery. But I saw a shoot coming out of the ground this afternoon where this one was, so maybe it's not entirely dead yet! I'm wondering if the extreme heat (the 2 weeks of 100-ish weather in July) may have been too much for it. Again, most of the other things in the garden did fine, even with that heat, so I just don't know.