Dogwood Anthracnose

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MorpheusPA
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Dogwood Anthracnose

Post by MorpheusPA » May 14th, 2010, 9:51 am

I've been fighting anthracnose on my dogwood for the last two years at least, and I finally lost the battle (if you look at my photos in my most-recent blog post, it's the shot with the clematis--the remains of the tree are in the middle of the low clematis pile).

Too bad. I liked that tree. However, they're so over-planted we're just asking for trouble. Plus I guarantee when I remove what I can that I'll find the knee was buried too deep--one that died on me after a long battle had the knee 24" down.

Indications are that the Japanese magnolias don't suffer from anthracnose (southern magnolias do). So I'm going to try a cheap, small Jane magnolia there and see how it goes.

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Re: Dogwood Anthracnose

Post by freyja5 » May 14th, 2010, 4:51 pm

That's a shame about your dogwood. What species was it? I love the Cornus nuttallii (although severely overplanted here too, owing to the fact that it is our provincial tree and flower). I've heard anthracnose is pretty bad here too (although I've never seen it myself; possibly just not observant enough).

Cornus kousa is supposed to be a bit more resistant to it.

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MorpheusPA
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Re: Dogwood Anthracnose

Post by MorpheusPA » May 14th, 2010, 9:41 pm

Cornus florida. I loved that tree, but we're losing them all over the place to anthracnose. The fungus isn't supposed to kill unless the tree has it badly for several years...I'm here to tell you it did minor damage the first year, which I controlled (and barely count that as an infection). The second year, major damage. The third year...dead, or very close. The tree has around 20 remaining leaves, I've removed massive dead wood, and it's losing the last few now.

My Kousa in the back is just fine, and I trust it stays that way. It hasn't bloomed yet, but it's very young, and it may or may not bloom this year (doubtful, though).

I'm dearly hoping that the Jane Magnolia survives there. If not, I'm looking at something plain like a tree-form forsythia.

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MorpheusPA
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Re: Dogwood Anthracnose

Post by MorpheusPA » May 16th, 2010, 9:16 pm

Update: The dogwood is gone. Ten minutes with a chainsaw, and toast, cut to within about 3" of the ground. It was a tiny tree, no more than 4" diameter, so it was easy.

I'm leaving the root systems (because there's no way for me to get them out), but drilled down into the dying trunk and added urea to all the holes. Hopefully that'll help it decay. Poking around, there are no major root systems left.

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