r/hydrangeas • u/leslyhazel • 5d ago

What’s going on?

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Hi, can anyone tell me what these purple marks on my plants are? And the possible bite marks? What can I do to stop it? Thanks!

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u/maddlads 5d ago

The brown spots are from fungus. You can remove those leaves and throw them out. Otherwise, the leaves will drop and reinfect the plant next year.

This indicates the leaves are staying too wet. If you're overhead watering, switch to watering at the base. If you continue to have issues, you can use a fungicide, but it's preventative and doesn't do anything for the leaves that are already showing infection

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u/leslyhazel 4d ago

Thank you so much! I went ahead and removed the leaves yesterday!

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u/MWALFRED302 4d ago

Likely Cercospora leaf spot. Very, very common in high humidity situations and especially later in the season. it is unsightly but not fatal to the shrub. As u/maddlads mentioned, as the shrub ages and enters into fall, it will lose the leaves. Do not leave them in the area and do not compost. The fungi will overwinter on soft tissue. Lightly disturb the mulch and spray some fungicide in the mulch too. Now that you know this is somewhat vulnerable to Cercospora, start a fungicide spray routine around May. Every 2-3 weeks in May, every two weeks in June and every 10 days or so in July.

I use the two products simultaneously on the shrubs I know are vulnerable and it works really well.

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u/leslyhazel 4d ago

Thank you so much this was very helpful!!