On 20/10/2017 14:51, stevejdowning wrote:
Hi folks,

First time post on Garden Banter. To business.

I've attached three photos taken yesterday. They show a disease which is
attacking evergreen shrubs, such as myrtle and azalea, owned by people
for whom I work as a gardener. The leaves go brown, with darker spots,
as shown, then fall off. Maybe the shrubs will grow new leaves next
year, but intuitively I am not hopeful.

If you could help ID the pathogen and suggest a preventative/curative
measure, I'd be pretty blimmin grateful.

Yours,

Steve


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I'm seeing it uk.rec.gardening on Usenet where the newsgroup that
gardenbanter parasitises really exists without adverts.

I have a bad feeling that it might be phytophtora fungal attack of the
roots which has become a serious nuisance in some important gardens. It
only shows in the leaves when it is ready to reproduce with spores.

http://extension.oregonstate.edu/lin...heet_-_OSU.pdf

(a US example but happens to show myrtle)

RHS version of plants affected here

https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/pdfs/p...-host-list.pdf

If it is this then you need a disinfectant bath at each site since your
boots will spread the fungus to new sites (I'm not convinced this works
but it is what I have seen done on sites where the thing is endemic).

--
Regards,
Martin Brown