![]() ![]() It hits the squash leaves really bad as they are big and shaded at lower levels. ![]() I am in zone 5 (Chicago) and have a community garden that harbors powdery mildew to say the least. So even when the conditions aren’t all that wet, it doesn’t seem to affect the amount of powdery mildew I get. I tried cutting everything down for a few years, bagging the affected branches up and putting them in the trash, but it didn’t seem to change the amount of PM I would get the next year…so now I just cut them down when they get too ragged, and just leave them to rot where they are.Īlso, they were hit with PM pretty hard this year, and it has been a considerably hot and dry summer here in Pittsburgh. It would be nice if that foliage stayed healthy all summer, but I’ve come to just accept what happens. I don’t think I could kill them if I WANTED to…they take a lot of abuse, and never seem fazed.Īnd the powdery mildew seems to set on after the flowers are spent, so it’s not that big a deal, to me. I used to freak out about it, but it never seems to affect the health of the roots…they’ve been coming up every year like clockwork, for the 64 years that I know of. I’ve gotten powdery mildew on my peonies for probably the last 10 years. In the video below Mike explains how he handles cases of powdery mildew on peonies and other plants in his landscape. Cleaning up the fallen leaves can help lessen the chance of future occurrences. It’s also helpful to know that fungi survive the winter by clinging to leaves and other parts of infected plants. The easiest defense is to be sure that your peonies are properly spaced to increase air circulation. Spraying after will help keep the mildew from spreading to other parts of the plant but will not kill what has already grown. You need to spray before you find an infected leaf. There are fungicides available, but they work as preventives. Most professionals would agree that there is not much that needs to be done to combat powdery mildew. Really severe cases of this chalky fungus can weaken the immune system in plants, but in most cases, it does very little damage and does not require treatment. The good news is that powdery mildew on peonies and other plants is more of an eyesore than a health problem. ![]() You can see where powdery mildew is beginning to show up on the wet leaves. This picture was taken about 3 weeks prior to the first picture. ![]() The leaves may curl, dry out, or fall off. You may notice dry or discolored leaves long before you begin to see a flour-like coating on the topside of the leaf. Powdery mildew usually begins on the lower leaves. But….(there’s always a but!) there are few species of fungi out there that will cause powdery mildew on many different types of plants. Each one generally only affects one or two different plants – They will spread peony to peony or rose to rose. There are multiple genres of fungi that cause powdery mildew to grow on peonies and other plants. High nighttime humidity creates a perfect environment to grow spores, and low daytime humidity makes for the perfect environment to disperse them. Even tiny vibrations from raindrops are to blame for spreading spores from leaf to leaf…and plant to plant. Spores are spread by insects (such as aphids) and through the air. Even still, it can still be found in very open, sunny areas. ![]()
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