You have either leaf spot fungus or early blight. Pick off all infected foliage. If the plant is too far gone pull it out and destroy it. Do not compost or you will put the spores right back in the soil.

Spray with fungicide that says it's for those 2 things. You will have to keep on top of it so more picking and spraying may be needed. Keep an eye out for other plants that may be infected too

When you water avoid wetting the foliage. These fungal diseases spread by water splashing from an infected leaf or the soil on to a new leaf. Your mulch may be infected too so remove it and put cardboard or layers of newspaper around the plants and new mulch on top. These diseases live in the top 2 inches of the soil.

We have had a terrible time with early blight on our tomatoes the last few years. This year we had 2 scorching hot dry weeks and the infection seems to be gone.
If you have to then lay black plastic over the bed and let the sun do the work

I hope it doesn't come to that, however. Good luck

That's what my Zinnia foliage ends up looking like every year...except for the cute little Pinwheels.

This year they're in a bed where I completely removed mulch and amended clay that would take years to remediate for drainage. Dug down and removed over 2' of clay from entire bed. Heavy as cement to move in wheelbarrow. Replaced with purchased organic top soil.

Zinnia planted in that bed still have foliage that looks like yours starting from bottom up but foliage started looking bad before I even got them planted out from containers in which I sowed seed.

Zinnia planted in containers on back deck and fenced in area near rose bushes also have same foliage problem. They're in fresh potting soil and new pine bark mulch.

I can't seem to get away from foliage problems with Zinnia.

Sprayed some near tomato plants which needed Daconil drench to prevent "late tomato blight" but they're still getting ratty foliage.

I don't spray water on leaves and water with very light spray directly at base of each plant.

I must say, though, that I have some in mixed containers with Tropical Milkweed and Verbena bonariensis that get morning sun and then late afternoon sun that are without foliage problems.

Still, ones in containers by rose bushes get sun from
7-8 AM until 6 PM without a break so there's enough sun when it's not raining this year.

Guess I'm never going to get rid of fungus in surrounding areas altogether and don't want to spray too much because I'm afraid to compromise butterflies I'm trying to attract with Zinnia.

You can always try the home remedy of skim milk and water solution sprayed on Zinnia leaves. I can't say I've seen a lessening of symptoms but things aren't growing gangbusters yet this year due to weather pattern.

I assume you have more sense than I do so if you don't use all the skim milk solution in one day refrigerate it to finish it up the next day or it'll turn to curdled skim milk solution by next day!

Good luck. Zenman told me you've got to spray with something that will coat the leaves before the fungal spores have a chance to attach themselves to foliage. What you spray is your choice according to label listing for blight, fungus or whatever members like Oilpainter recognize as the problem.

I think I'll go cut off all the offensive Zinnia foliage so it doesn't spread any further for now.

Still love Zinnia no matter what their foliage does. As long as plants survive to flower we're lucky you have to remove the foliage anyway to put flowers in a vase!

You ought to consider growing some of the disease resistant hybrids, like Profusion. I've never had any problem whatsoever with mine over several years of growing them. I also like how the Magellan series performs, too.

Newbie, the Profusions are butterfly magnets!

Rhizo, I didn't know the Profusions were that attractive to the larger butterflies like Monarchs and Black Swallowtails.

The little Skippers of all kinds will take any blossom with nectar but they don't need as large a landing pad as larger butterflies.

I read an article in 'Birds & Blooms' where they did polling across the country. People from different regions reported such variations as to which Zinnia were preferred by all types of butterflies for a couple years.

Today I saw my first Monarch of the year and wanted to yank it over to all the tropical milkweed I planted in addition to others I have. I didn't even see it stop for the Verbena bonariensis or Echinacea it passed right over.

I don't have to worry about the first planting out of Zinnia in the front bed and mailbox bed since a young rabbit ate them today after my morning rounds. Luckily I have more seedlings so I replaced them and sprayed with RepelsAll. The little mongers are eating all the Lantana flowers too. Now both plants and I smell like rancid garlic...LOL.

Little rabbits also found and ate all blooms off all Torenia 'Magenta Moon' which I thought were foolproof for shady bed behind garage. There's no color left back there now except for small Salvia coccinea 'Coral Nymph' until the Lobelia blooms.

I refuse to be without Zinnia no matter how bad the foliage gets or how many seedlings I have to plant and spray with repellant. :)

I think I'll try sowing some Profusions for next year.

I had the Magellans last year but I didn't sow any this year as I was trying for more single blooms as they're suppposedly easier for large butterflies to land upon. Don't know why I didn't sow them since butterflies nectared from them last year. They have beautiful color combos on some blooms which is really exciting and I like the variety from one bloom to another.

I ended up sowing some Carrousel mix but they've all been eaten except for few in containers on deck so don't know how their blooms will compare.

Magellan seeds are on sale for 99 cents at TMseeds.com right now. Maybe I should get some for next year although I don't see much else I can use that's critter resistant in colors I want from their sale selection.

I have over 30 seedlings of Benaries, Pinwheel & haageana still in sowing containers which are larger soda bottles so they should hold for another week or more.

Rhizo, what color Profusions do you have and/or think hold their color longest? Do you see a difference in butterfly activity between single and double Profusion?

My flower bed is quite large and is mixed with hundred of other plants. I guess I should just pull all the zinnia.
The area is so large, I have to use a sprinkler system for watering. I don't mind spraying, I will look for a fungicide that I can drench the soil and mulch with.

You suggested removing the mulch, but I just put down 32 bags of it and am not about to remove it.

Thanks

* Posted by oilpainter (My Page) on
Mon, Jul 13, 09 at 11:04

You have either leaf spot fungus or early blight. Pick off all infected foliage. If the plant is too far gone pull it out and destroy it. Do not compost or you will put the spores right back in the soil.

Spray with fungicide that says it's for those 2 things. You will have to keep on top of it so more picking and spraying may be needed. Keep an eye out for other plants that may be infected too

When you water avoid wetting the foliage. These fungal diseases spread by water splashing from an infected leaf or the soil on to a new leaf. Your mulch may be infected too so remove it and put cardboard or layers of newspaper around the plants and new mulch on top. These diseases live in the top 2 inches of the soil.

We have had a terrible time with early blight on our tomatoes the last few years. This year we had 2 scorching hot dry weeks and the infection seems to be gone.
If you have to then lay black plastic over the bed and let the sun do the work

Pull the zinnias if you like but the underlying problem will still be there and will affect anything else you put in there. Watch for it on other plants in the same bed.

Stupid question time: If this disease only lives in the top 2 inches of soil, why can't you compost?
(for reference, my c-pile is 8 feet wide by about 6 feet tall, certainly deeper than the 2 inches that you say this lives in).

rodco,

"I guess I should just pull all the zinnias."

From the standpoint of ornamentation, yes, pull them because those zinnias are in such bad shape that they don't contribute to your landscape. However, you might want to leave a few, or plant some more zinnias, to act as indicators of your plant growing conditions. I agree with oilpainter that "the underlying problem will still be there and will affect anything else you put in there."

Your pictures are very helpful in showing how bad the problem is. Your zinnias are displaying symptoms of several problems. You may actually have both fungal and bacterial foliage diseases but, in addition, there are indications of serious nutritional deficiencies, which may have made your zinnias more susceptible to diseases. There are many relationships between Mineral Nutrition and Plant Disease.

The pale green foliage color indicates a nitrogen deficiency, which may be indirectly caused by the copious mulch that you applied. The soil microbes that break down the mulch use the available nitrogen in the soil, so the mulch is indirectly competing for the nitrogen via the microbes. The nitrogen supply may have been sufficient before the mulch was applied. You need to supply some extra nitrogen to appease the appetite of those mulch-digesting microbes.

There are also signs of possible water deficiency, because some of the dead leaf areas simply appear not to have recovered from a severe wilt, although advanced stages of nitrogen deficiency can lead to leaf death and leaf drop as well. The interveinal yellowing of the older leaves is a symptom of a deficiency of one or more nutrients that move around readily in the plant, because a plant will "rob Peter to pay Paul" when faced with a deficiency or deficiencies. The plant pulls the needed nutrients from the lower, older leaves and supplies them to the newer growth.

In your top picture, the youngest leaves seem to be the only ones that aren't in distress. If there were no nutrient shortages, all of the leaves would look like that youngest leaf. Elements that can be stolen from older leaves and directed to new leaves include nitrogen, magnesium, and potassium. Your zinnias could be deficient in all three.

ZM

You can't compost because the disease also lives on the affected plants in the leaves. Most fungal diseases spread like this--water hits the soil and splashes onto a leaf carrying the disease spores, but if that was all only the bottom leaves would be infected. It's not all the infected leaves also carry the spores. Water hits an infected leaf and splashes on to a new leaf--that leaf is infected.

Compost it and you are putting the spores into the new soil you are making.

zenman is right wood mulch does deplete the nitrogen in the soil as it breaks down. Mulch has many positives but this is the negative. To combat it use a fertilizer that has higher than mormal nitrogen--nitrogen is the first number in your fertilizer

No, seriously...if it only lives in the top 2 inches of soil, then composting the plant (and surrounding soil) in a pile that is 2 feet or more deep...wouldn't that KILL it?

I'm not trying to argue...just trying to understand why these spores would not be killed by putting it deep into a heated compost pile?

Found this:

Here is a link that might be useful: Says to burn or compost

The heating of the compost may indeed kill most or even all the spores, but it only takes one to reinfect. For myself with the little bit of compost you are going to get out of these plants, I'd rather not take a chance, but suit yourself.

As for your rabbits. They much prefer clover over garden plants. Do you have a place nearby your plants where you can sow a bed of clover?

My son lives in the coutry and had a hard time growing grass in his sandy soil on a slope, so he seeded clover to have something there that wouldn't die out. The rabbits kept it neat and left his flowers alone.

The first flats of Zinnia Profusion that I planted this year looked just the same and all of them died. Then I bought a few plants later on and they are doing better. I have never had Zinnia's die like that before either. I attribute it to the awful cool wet weather we had all Spring. I heard about the tomatoe blight but so far all my tomatoes are fine.
Joann