A plant that grows best in Zones 7a south, ie. warmer climates.

Where in the world are you?

What are the growing conditions this plant experiences? Soil? Drainage? Nutrient availability? Sun/Shade conditions?

"Ligustrum japonicum" is listed by most sources as being fairly free of diseases and pests.

I'm in Israel, the equivalent of zone 9-zone 10 in the US. Clay soil, reasonable drainage (gentle slope), Temp now in midsummer in the lower to mid 90s F, high humidity.

I thought it might be thrips, but I can't explain the webbing, which look exactly like spider mite webbing.

Any possible chance of a better picture? The one provided isn't helpful.

Here's another photo. Hope this one's better. The stumps of the leaves look positively scorched.

I'm sorry, cat, your pictures are pretty blurry. Are the leaves being chewed up by something? If so, the cause of webbing could be a leaf rolling caterpillar of some kind. Honestly, you'll have to take a good, clear picture of an affected leaf for me to see if spider mites or thrips are issues here at all.

Is the damage found only on the branch tips? How does the rest of the plant look?

rhizo, I took another picture yesterday and it came out just as blurry. Something seems to be wrong with my camera.

The leaves do appear to be chewed up by something. They look chewed, but at the same time also sort of scorched into the colours of brown and black.

There's also tiny black pellets on the damaged leaves that look like the droppings of some creature. Trouble is I don't see any creature.

The damage is only on on branch tips. Such a pity, because the tree is into a massive phase of new growth right now.

And thanks for taking the time to try to figure out what's going on.

I checked photos of leaves rolled by leafrollers - it's not the same kind of webbing. The webbing on my tree look just like spidermite webbing. it's not present on all damaged branch tips - only on some. In addition, the leaves are not rolled, but distorted.

try putting a coin behind the plant.. so the gizmo is forced to focus on the plant.. rather than the sheet behind ...

or better yet.. go take a pic outside ...

when was the plant planted?

ken

Ken, I usually try to take a picture against the background of a white sheet of paper. It works very well. The problem is my camera, not the white background. The second picture I uploaded was taken outside, with me holding a white sheet behind the leaves.