I first noticed the problem early last spring on one of my dogwood trees.  The tree died over the winter and one of the first things I noticed was this grayish-green fungus looking stuff on the branches.  I mentioned it to my neighbor and we began noticing it on several different woody ornamentals as well.  On some of these plants the branches that have the fungus are dead while on others the branches are still alive.  We’ve found it on azaleas, dogwood and mountain laurel while the lilac, forsythia, burning bush, butterfly bushes and mock orange seem untouched.  All have been in their location for over 15 years and there has not been much change in the environment.

 Below are some pictures of the problem (click on the pictures to enlarge).

I’d really love to know what the problem is and what can be done to solve it with as few chemicals as possible (would prefer none!). Thank you for any input and help anyone can contribute.

Burning Bush

We’ve been blessed with some early nice weather here in PA, so I’ve been taking advantage of it by pruning some shrubs that really needed it.  I really took a few of them back too.  Starting with the Burning Bush taking off a good 2-3 feet.

3 of the holly bushes

Then following with the 4 holly bushes.  Two of them just got a nice trim, but the other two gotten taken back pretty far.

1 holly bush along the back fence

The brush pile- it's taller than it looks

This left me with a nice brush pile taller than me which I will have to spend a few weekends  stacking and tying bundles of branches together for yard pick-up in the middle of April.  That’ll be more work than the pruning was.  At least it is done and I’ll only have to deal with my forsythia and lilacs when they are done blooming.

The dreaming has already begun with the arrival of garden catelogs in the mail over the past few weeks.   I’ve glanced through them, but having been spending time studying so will look through them again.  Turning on the computer and seeing my little weather bug thing say it is minus 8 (!) outside really has me wishing for Spring though.  At least I can dream.

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We don’t have any trees in our yard that get the beautiful fall colors, but this burning bush really lets us know that fall is here! It seems to get redder the colder it gets.

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I have 2 butterfly bushes in my back yard, this purple one and a white one that was a volunteer. The Monarchs have been enjoying them a lot this summer. There is nothing like looking out the window and seeing 5 or 6 of them dancing around the back yard.

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I got a chance to go out and take some pictures of what is currently in bloom-

 Butterfly weed

  My hydrangea finally bloomed because I didn’t cut it back.  It is loaded with blooms. 

  Joe Pye Weed not quite in bloom yet

  Croscomia- not a great picture.  This was from a cheap bag of summer blooming bulbs I bought at Big Lots.  It didn’t bloom the first year and I actually thought it was a Bearded iris.  The second year though it began to shine.  It has red flowers that the hummingbirds love.  Surprisely, it survives through the winter even though it is suppose to only be winter-hardy to zone 5 and I live in zone 6.  It must be in a little bit warmer spot.

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(This was suppose to post yesterday, but for some reason it didn’t.  Hope you enjoy it a day late!) 

Well, so far I have not been able to get into the gardening groove this summer.  Working 2 jobs does not help.  Luckily some plants are tough and seem to bloom no matter what.  Here is some of what is blooming now

  My purple clematis

  These are some of my Ebay Suprise daylilies.  The surprise is not knowing what color they would be!

  The Sweet Peas are great as they come back gung ho every year.

  After a few years off from flowering ( I think I gave it a good shock when I removed some of the plant to give away) our one yucca has decided to bloom. 

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Things are growing faster than I can keep up!  We have had some good rain storms over the past 2 weeks which is great for the plants, not great for the battle of Me vs the weeds.  We had a real wicked thunderstorm last night which turned the peony blooms to mush.  

Here are some of the plants that are blooming this week-

This is my Miniature Goat’s Beard.  I love the feathery flowers and it looks great against my Sum and Substance hosta.

My white clematis has just started to bloom.  My purple one shouldn’t be far behind.

This is one of my foxglove with a sprig of my yellow butterfly bush.  It doesn’t look yellow to you either, does it? I bought it 2 years ago and this is the first year it has bloomed.  I was really looking forward to the yellow blossoms and yellow isn’t even one of my favorite colors in the garden.  Oh, the fun of plant buying!

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I missed last week so I took more pictures this week to make up for it!

I have a lot of columbine all over my yard this year.  The wind must have blown in the right direction from my neighbor’s yard.

I get to enjoy a lot of plants from my neighbor.  She is very generous in sharing, but also many seem to spread over to our yard from her’s.  This bearded Iris is actually on her side of the fence.

I love the scent of honeysuckle in the morning and I love the color of the blooms on this one.  Is it planted next to my front porch so I can enjoy it.

This is Sum and Substance, a huge hosta that is in my front yard.  This year it can realy shine since we removed the fern that was taking over the bed it is in.  I can’t wait until it is completely unfurled.

I didn’t plant much in my vegetable garden this year.  I put in some lettuce for my bunnies (I am sure they will share some with me), I think they deserve it since they provide me with stuff for my compost pile. 

They keep calling for rain, but it has been disappointing so far.  Today it acted like there was going to be a good storm, but it only lasted for about 5 minutes.  I am hoping for a good rain so I can get some major weeding done much more easily. Maybe tomorrow…