We have that same problem here. Best we can figure out is that the shrub is stressed and this pathogen is only adding to the problem. The disease books all point ot it being an opportunistic bugger. Ours do not get enough sun and only the older more established Laurels, who grew up before the trees started blocking the light seem to not be affected.

good Luck.
t

My laurels were planted long before we bought this house, and though I love them, they shouldn't be here--we have alkaline soil. So I do acidify the soil around the laurels (I use absolutely no chemicals anywhere else). I think I omitted to do it last spring, and the laurels looked horrible this year. The largest one had the spots, as you describe, and it lost a lot of foliage. I used Holly Tone about a month ago, and they all look much better and are now putting out a great deal of new growth. (The spots of course remain.)

I use HollyTone once a year, not twice as the label says, and I think I use about half as much as directed. As I said, I forgot to do it last year, and the shrubs all looked awful. Also, last year was quite wet in this area, so the black spots may have something to do with that as well.

In our yard, the mountain laurels in the woods do not have the disease, but the one that I have planted in a very sunny spot by the house has it!

We have very acid soil, but maby the concrete foundation?
After reading the last post, I started to wonder if the soil right next to the house might have a totally different ph than the rest of our soil....

Please let me know if you find anything that works for this!

We too have very acidic soil, so I don't think it is ph related.

I removed the yellow leaves and trimmed off dead branches. I do see lots of new growth (no flower buds though). I'm going to give it a dose of general purpose fertilizer and see if that helps.

M-A