PPDL Picture of the Week
February 15, 2016
Plan Now for Garden and Flower Bed Sanitation
Gail Ruhl, Senior Plant Disease Diagnostician, Botany and Plant Pathology, Purdue University
When there is little snowcover,
plant debris left in flower beds and gardens is more noticeable. If your peony plants or daylilies are in
disarray from a lack of time last Fall to remove the old, dead, diseased, plant
material, now is the time to plan for springtime sanitation. You can protect
the new shoots that will emerge this spring from the fungal diseases that caused
spots, blotches and streaks on the leaves of your plants last year.
Sanitation (removal of diseased
plant material) is key to reducing the amount of disease build-up and carryover
to plants the following growing season. Fungi wait in a dormant state until the
following spring when rains and warmer weather induce the production of spores
which are then disseminated by wind and water to infect plants during the
growing season. Sanitation is one of the most important methods of maintaining
healthy plants.
Your springtime sanitation regimen for flower
beds and gardens should include the following:
·
Remove dried, diseased, mummified
fruits or vegetables and diseased flower heads and stalks from the gardening
area
·
Remove fallen, diseased, leaves
to remove fungi that have overwintered
In reality, for the best results,
sanitation should be a year round process. Removal of infected leaves and flowers,
as well as infected berries, vegetables and diseased fruit, as soon as problems
are diagnosed, will ultimately reduce the spread of disease and provide for a
healthier garden/landscape environs.