"Charlie Pridham" wrote in message
T...
In article ,
says...

"Sacha" wrote in message
...
On 2009-07-14 18:24:09 +0100, "Ivan" said:


"Sacha" wrote in message
...
On 2009-07-14 18:02:14 +0100, "Ivan" said:


As I am a relative newcomer to gardening I hope someone here may be
to
help me with a couple of problems.
My young grand daughter has been telling me that 'the honey bees are
in
trouble', therefore we have to do our bit to try and encourage as
many
of them into our gardens as we can.
Fair enough I saw on the telly that bees are particularly attracted
to
honeysuckle and lavender plants, so I went to our local garden
centre
and purchased a 'Lonicera americana' honeysuckle which I was
informed
was particularly good, at the time I did notice that a couple of the
leaves looked a little suspect (as in photo) but thought that once I
got it into some decent soil with a couple of handfuls of bonemeal
(as
seen on TV) everything would be OK, however whilst it still
continues
to grow apace the leaves still look far from healthy, whilst the
stems
in places appear to have a greyish coating.
|
Also a lavender that I purchased at the same time started off
wonderfully but that too now appears to be on the wane with some of
the
heads now beginning to turn a brownish colour.. Any help will be
greatly appreciated, below is a link to a couple of photos of both
the
honeysuckle and the lavender plant.
|
TIA Ivan
|
http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/Anth230542/HonLavr?authkey=Gv1sRgCPKH-i75Yv4gwE&feat=directlink
or
http://tinyurl.com/lwnrs6



I'd

take both straight back to the place you bought them from.
--
Sacha

|

Oh dear, that sounds ominous?

Both Lonicera x americana and Lonicera x italica (which is what you get
99 times out of 100 in the uk when you buy x americana) are prone to
mildew but x italica is worse and the only way around it is have it
somewhere less dry and its possible in the case of x italica to cut it
back after flowering as it flowers early (it is mostly over by now )the
new growth will normally be clear of mildew, you can also spray but its
not likely to cure the problem completely.



Thank you for the advice, I haven't seen any flowers since I've had it and
despite most of the leaves being affected it appears to be growing at quite
a phenomenal rate, is there any particular make of anti mildew spray that
you can recommend?
Also the instructions suggest pruning in February, would it be unwise to
attempt to do any now, or is it best that I wait until next year?