Hi there,

I'd really appreciate your input on what might be happening with my fuchsia.



I've chatted with a few local folks and they seem to have differing opinions over whether this is rust or some pest.

The fuchsia is likely 10+ years old (was pretty big when I moved into the house) and it blooms nice flowers every year, despite having had this leaf issue for the last 2 or 3 years. I stripped the plant bare the last year, a bunch of green leaves grew back (yay!) along with flowers (also yay!), but towards the end of the flowering season the leaves starting getting these white and black dots on them again :\.

(in case it's helpful: I'm in Northern California, and I have typically drip-watered my small backyard for 15 minutes 3x weekly at 5am except when it's rainy. The fuchsia gets a small-to-moderate amount of sun).

Thanks in advance for your insights :). Trying to decide whether to A) ignore the issue B) try to treat the plant or C) replace the plant

Hello. I don't want you to think your question's being ignored, but I have to confess that I've never seen anything like that on a fuchsia leaf.

It's the wrong color for rust, and if I had to take a guess, I'd say it's an extreme whitefly or spider mite infestation. This is rare in outdoor plants, however. The remedy for whitefly or spider mites is a pyrethrin-based insecticide.

I have to wonder whether the "small-to-moderate amount of sun" played a part in this. I also live in northern California and I wouldn't dare grow fuchsias anywhere but in shade.

Indeed, I couldn't find anyone else (online or offline) who had seem something like this on a fuchsia leaf!

And similarly puzzling is how the plant has still flowered a lot each year.

Still, I'm tempted to assume that the plant has been weakened, creating sort of a catch-22 of attracting/sustaining/getting-damaged-from pests, so I'm thinking I should just replace the plant at this point. Bummed, because it'll take a long time for it to get as big and flowery as my current one :\

Anyway, zuzu, thanks for the reply! And hopefully these pests won't attack other plants in my small backyard :\

Zu
i live far enuff north of you that i have several Fuchsia in full sun as full sun as we have here
most are partial shade
i have not seen that on any fuchsia here either
at first i thought it might grey fungus Botrytis cinerea which is rot
wondering if there might be something near the plant that might have rotted ?

Hi, Dick. I guess it could be botrytis, but wouldn't that affect the blooms as well as the foliage? ThatAdamGuy's fuchsia blooms well each year in spite of whatever this is on the leaves.

so it happens the same time of year each year ?
in your back yard ?
and not seen on any other plant ?

ThatAdamGuy said: towards the end of the flowering season the leaves starting getting these white and black dots on them again :\.
(in case it's helpful: I'm in Northern California, and I have typically drip-watered my small backyard for 15 minutes 3x weekly at 5am except when it's rainy. The fuchsia gets a small-to-moderate amount of sun).

i was just now looking for an answer for another plant and saw these images
sure does look similar doesn't it ?
powdery mildew
https://www.google.com/search?...

It certainly does look similar, Dick, but isn't this another disease that also affects the blooms? I used to have a couple of roses that were susceptible to powdery mildew. It traveled from the leaves to the buds, which wouldn't open into blooms.

I had what I think was spider mites on my schefflera (on the front porch vs. the backyard), and come to think of it, this white mass looks a bit similar.

And yep, this does seem to happen at the same time each year... typically AFTER the flowers have bloomed and fallen off. I'm gonna go outside this weekend and look with a magnifying glass to see if that gives me a bit better sense of the composure (and also to see if I see anything moving).

Zu
wouldn't it depend on when it hits the plant ?
and he says always after the bloom ?
it should continue to show on old leaves
maybe he will see something better with the magnifying glass

Yes, that's right. It does depend on when it shows up. The powdery mildew on one of my roses didn't strike until the plant had finished blooming. On others, however, it showed up earlier and attacked the buds. Whether it's powdery mildew or spider mites, the drip irrigation could be part of the problem. Now that I water all of my roses from overhead, there's no more problem with powdery mildew. It sounds odd, I know, but this type of mildew will not grow on wet foliage and thrives in dry climates. Drip irrigation is no help with spider mites either. When my indoor plants are attacked by spider mites, I take them outside and blast them with the garden hose, from below and from above, a couple of times a day for a few days in a row. That always eliminates the problem.

well i hope the magnifying glass helps with an answer

Well, it did seem to resemble powdery mildew, but possibly a combination of things :(.

So I just stripped the fuchsia bare (as I did the past winters)... but also will plan to spray the branches with neem once a week to see what happens.

Then again, my gardener is suggesting that we just give up and start over with a smaller but healthier fuchsia. Hmm. Decisions, decisions :\