escallonia hedging

pegasuspub

hi i have been struggling to save my hedge with the last few years, i planted a lot of escallonia around the garden over 20 years, well over 150 feet of it and am in an exposed sea side area, over the last few years it has been damaged by a fungus and my local garden center advised to spray it with symazine and a weak solution of water and liquid sea weed based feed twice a year in the summer.
i have been doing this and it did slow the progress of the infection for a while but i am gradually loosing more and more hedge,a lot of the leaves have black spots on them and some of the hedge has died back and gone woodie,
i have removed and burned as much of the dead hedge that i can
is there any other spray or anything else i can do?
i would hate to have to dig out and replace it .

pegasuspub

that last post should have read # spayed with signum and a weak mixture of water and seaweed based feed and not symazine/
any help?

macraignil

pegasuspub wrote: »

hi i have been struggling to save my hedge with the last few years, i planted a lot of escallonia around the garden over 20 years, well over 150 feet of it and am in an exposed sea side area, over the last few years it has been damaged by a fungus and my local garden center advised to spray it with symazine and a weak solution of water and liquid sea weed based feed twice a year in the summer.
i have been doing this and it did slow the progress of the infection for a while but i am gradually loosing more and more hedge,a lot of the leaves have black spots on them and some of the hedge has died back and gone woodie,
i have removed and burned as much of the dead hedge that i can
is there any other spray or anything else i can do?
i would hate to have to dig out and replace it .

It might be worth testing some of the soil near the hedge to see if the soil has developed a less favorable pH for the hedge. Lime is sometimes added to reduce excess acidity. There also could be some nutrients missing if the same plants are growing in the same place for a long time so removing any competing growth and giving a mulch of well matured manure or compost could also help. The mulch might also encourage more beneficial microbes to compete with and reduce the fungus infection that has become a problem. Some people try making a compost tea as well to apply to boost growth in their plants but results seem to mixed. eg.

Oldtree

pegasuspub wrote: »

hi i have been struggling to save my hedge with the last few years, i planted a lot of escallonia around the garden over 20 years, well over 150 feet of it and am in an exposed sea side area, over the last few years it has been damaged by a fungus and my local garden center advised to spray it with symazine and a weak solution of water and liquid sea weed based feed twice a year in the summer.
i have been doing this and it did slow the progress of the infection for a while but i am gradually loosing more and more hedge,a lot of the leaves have black spots on them and some of the hedge has died back and gone woodie,
i have removed and burned as much of the dead hedge that i can
is there any other spray or anything else i can do?
i would hate to have to dig out and replace it .

Can you describe the fungus? The color and texture etc of the strands. What's under the bark? and the mushroom toadstool? Photos would be great.