At Burkholder Plant Health Care, the first half of 2025 has been extremely busy. We started early treating plants to hasten recovery from winter injury. As we predicted, newly installed plants and plants with marginal hardiness took the brunt of the extremely low temperatures we experienced in late January. And now we are experiencing record rain and humidity wreaking havoc on many plants in the landscape. Below are some of the 2025 plant health concerns we have been seeing so far this year.
Winter Injury
Winter injury in boxwoods appears as browning and yellow patches. In Laurels, symptoms will be browning on the leaf tips and margins. These are two very common plants in our area. Treating the soil that supports the plant with nutrients, controlling insects and disease threats that reduce plant vigor and treating leaf surfaces in the fall with anti-desiccant spray is what we do to help plants recover and reduce the severity of winter injury in the future.
Humidity
If your roses look like this, we can help. Left untreated roses get attacked by Japanese Beetles, the leaves get eaten by rose slug sawfly and aphids and they are also affected by foliar fungus.
When monitored and treated your roses will have strong blooms and maintain healthy foliage well into the fall.
Laurels
We are treating laurels to hasten winter injury recovery and removing dead limbs. We are also treating for White Prunicola Scale. One of the telltale signs is white fuzzy looking covering on the inner branches which is the insect feeding on the plants vital fluids.
Japanese Beetles
Japanese beetles are just emerging. These photos show the extensive damage on a Linden tree. They also love roses, crape myrtles, birch, hibiscus, cherries and just about any other fruit tree.
Crape Myrtles
Crape myrtles, especially smaller, newly planted, did not fare well with the extreme cold. Older, more mature plants did better because the contain more moisture and reserves to protect and recover.
Currently we are seeing Aphids, powdery mildew and Japanese beetle attacks.
Beech Leaf Disease
Beech Leaf Disease shows up as dark banding of leaves and mid season curling of leaves. We are treating with macroinjections similar to treatments done to elm trees (Dutch elm disease) and sycamores (anthracnose) and rolling out our own experimental treatments. Stay Tuned.
