Honeysuckle - not happy

corianderwhish

Hello all,
Please may I pick the hive brain again?  Pictured are two honeysuckles I planted earlier this spring (though, tbh, my memory is so flaky these days, it may have been late last autumn) and as you can see they’ve gone from thriving and so healthy looking a couple of weeks ago to not very happy looking today. But the thing is, this has happened to every honeysuckle I’ve ever planted (and I‘ve tried planting them in four different gardens) at about this stage in the season - they start of looking well and after about 8-12 weeks the leaves turn yellow and/or get these spots on them. I gave them a Vitax Q4 feed about 6 weeks ago and a fish, bone, blood dusting a couple of weeks ago when they started to look unhappy. I’ve also been watering them 2-3 times a week. Does anyone know what the problem is, please? 

Dovefromabove

That’s the beginning of powdery mildew ... they succumb to this when the plants are stressed
... usually by drought.  The soil is very dry down there below the surface, so they need water water water ... gallons of the stuff. I would give each plant two buckets of water every other day from now until mid September. 

 Good luck. 

corianderwhish

Crikey, but ok, will do.  Thank you. Is that likely to solve this or do I need to treat the mildew that’s now there as well?

Dovefromabove

The leaves that are affected are likely to fall ... clear them up and bin them. The plant will grow some more. 

I’ve put a deeper hose along this bed to ensure my Lonicera ‘Graham Thomas’ gets enough water  ... it’s in the shade of a huge tree as well as competing with it for water!

Oh, the pic went to the top and not down here ... sorry.