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Find out what steps you can take to help avoid disease in your garden.

Friends and Foes - Diseases

Plant diseases can spread fast if conditions are right. This quiz covers common causes, warning signs, and simple steps that help keep garden plants healthier.

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Fascinating Fact:

Rust diseases show as orange, brown, or yellow spots, often on the underside of leaves. Removing badly affected leaves can help slow spread.

In gardening, “diseases” usually means problems caused by fungi, bacteria, or viruses, plus issues made worse by stress, like poor drainage or lack of airflow. Many diseases spread by water splash, wind, contaminated tools, or infected plant material, so hygiene matters. The best prevention is often simple: choose suitable plants for the site, avoid overcrowding, water the soil rather than the leaves, and remove infected growth promptly. If a plant keeps getting the same problem each year, it can help to change the variety, improve spacing, or rotate crops in vegetable beds.

Key Terms

Pathogen: A germ that causes disease in a plant, such as a fungus, bacterium, or virus.
Airflow: The movement of air around plants, which helps leaves dry and reduces damp conditions.
Sanitation: Keeping tools, pots, and growing areas clean to reduce the spread of pests and diseases.

Frequently Asked Questions (Click to see answers)

How do I stop plant diseases spreading in my garden?

To slow spread, remove infected leaves, avoid watering foliage, clean secateurs between plants, and give plants enough space so air can move through the border.

What causes fungal diseases on garden plants?

Fungal diseases are often encouraged by damp leaves, overcrowding, and mild humid weather. Spores can travel in wind or splashing water and infect stressed plants more easily.

Should I put diseased leaves in the compost bin?

It is safer to bin or remove badly diseased leaves, especially if they are covered in mould or spots. Home compost may not get hot enough to kill all pathogens.

Try These Related Quizzes

To see a larger image, click on the picture.

1 .

Pythium (as seen in the picture below) is one of a number of diseases that cause the sudden collapse of seedlings often referred to as 'damping off'. Which of the diseases below is NOT a cause of damping off?

Botulism

Fusarium

Phytophthora

Rhizoctonia

If you have ever grown bedding plants from seed then you will almost certainly have seen damping off!
Patches of seedlings collapse and die extremely quickly.
Ensuring that the compost is not too wet and is occassionally allowed to dry out a little is the best means of preventing the disease.
Always use clean (washed and sterilized) seed trays and pots.

Botulism is a serious disease associated with humans - not plants!

2 .

The curse of rose growers is rose Black Spot but do you know what type of organism it is caused by?

Photograph courtesy of www.flickr.com/photos/scotnelson/

Bacteria

Fungus

Oomycete

Virus

This damaging disease of roses was prevented in the days of highly-polluted air by the presence of sulfur.
Oddly, less roses are grown nowadays because of more Black Spot as a result of cleaner air!
Infected leaves develop black or purple spots and patches followed by the leaves dropping prematurely in late summer.
Meticulously clear away the leaves around the rose bed each autumn to prevent carry-over of the disease from one year to the next.

3 .

Where on a plant would you expect to see the first signs of powdery mildew?

Growing tips

Upper leaves

Lower leaves

Base of the stem

Typically powdery mildew first appears as isolated powdery spots on the leaf surface but these spread rapidly and sometimes completely cover the leaf.
It is distinguishable from downy mildew by virtue of the fact that powdery mildew always has a 'powdery' appearance.
Frequent spraying with plain water helps keep the disease at bay and infected leaves should be taken off as soon as possible and destroyed.

4 .

Between which two countries has animosity been created because of fireblight?

Photograph courtesy of Ninjatocoshell

Australia and New Zealand

China and the USA

England and France

Spain and Portugal

When conditions are ideal for the spread of fireblight it can spread rapidly and wipe out an entire orchard in a single growing season.
Affected stems wither and go black just as they would if scorched by fire, hence the name fireblight.
The plants most badly affected are apples and pears but some ornamental plants such as Cotoneaster and Pyracantha are also vulnerable to attack.
Prune affected branches and destroy immediately.

Australia (where there is no fireblight) will not allow the importation of New Zealand apples because fireblight is known to exist in New Zealand

5 .

This is Botrytis cinerea. What is its usual name in the gardening world?

Grey disease

Grey mildew

Grey mould

Grey rot

A serious disease that has to be dealt with by fruit growers.
It can be devastating in a vineyard.
Equally it can ruin a crop of tomatoes or strawberries.
Its rapid spread and severity is made worse by damp, humid conditions when the air 'stagnates'.
Much can be done to prevent the disease on strawberries by ensuring that there is a good layer of straw beneath the ripening berries.
In glasshouses, always ensure adequate ventilation.

6 .

This attractive looking fungus is a deadly threat to gardeners. What is its name?

Photograph courtesy of Tocekas

Beeswax fungus

Honey fungus

Sugar fungus

Syrup fungus

This insidious disease is the most destructive fungal disease that gardeners have to deal with.
It lives on and kills plant roots.
Most of the activity takes place underground but now and again brown fungi, such as those in the picture, appear at the base of infected plants.
No chemical controls are available.
The only long-term solution is to excavate and destroy all infected roots, bark and other plant material.

7 .

What organism causes the type of die-back of a tree's branches known as canker?

Bacteria

Fungi

Virus

All of the above

This problem spreads only slowly through an area of trees.
Apple canker (caused by a fungus) is the most frequently seen form in the UK.
Usually the disease can be kept in check by regularly pruning out any affected areas. In severe cases a copper-based fungicide may prove useful.

Canker is a word used to describe similar effects caused by many different organisms

8 .

What is the name given to the group of fungi that create leaf disfiguration similar to that seen below?

Plant blemish

Plant freckle

Plant rust

Plant spot

There are over 7,000 different 'varieties' in the group of fungi that create this type of speckling on plant leaves.
Plants are seldom killed but yields are greatly depleted.
Plants affected range from wheat to forest trees.
In the garden it is most troublesome on chrysanthemums, fuchsias, pelargoniums and roses.
Destroy affected leaves and employ strict regimes of hygiene.

9 .

These roots are infected with the disease known as clubroot. Which group of plants are most often affected?

Brassicas

Herbaceous plants

Top fruit

Soft fruit

The disease is easily recognized on infected roots because they swell abnormally.
In the garden the most frequent early sign of clubroot is that plants wilt in warm weather.
Affected plants are not always killed but the crop potential will be severely restricted.
The disease is less prevalent in highly alkaline soils.
Resistant (but not immune!) varieties are gradually being introduced.

The term 'brassica' is used to collectively describe the large group of vegetables that include cabbages, cauliflowers and turnips

10 .

Potato blight was responsible for the greatest farming tragedy in the history of the British Isles. How many people are estimated to have died during the Irish Potato Famine in the mid 1800s?

One thousand

Ten thousand

One hundred thousand

One million

The organism referred to as potato blight is scientifically known as Phytophthora infestans.
It can also affect tomatoes with equally disastrous consequences.
Its spread is dependent upon warm, humid conditions.
Copper based fungicides offer some protection.
Long-term a solution is likely to be found with the aid of genetic engineering to provide resistant varieties.

A further million people emigrated as a result of the famine, thus changing the face of Ireland forever. All because large numbers of people were dependent on the potato as a food crop and it was nearly wiped out because of blight.

Author: Colin King

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