Types of garden plant diseases

01 August 2012

Plant diseases should be a major concern for anyone engaged in gardening. It doesn’t matter if you’re just starting to do the activity or if you’re an expert in it already. Diseases will strike the plants that you have regardless of what you know. To help you out here are some of the more common garden plant diseases that you might encounter:

Fungal Disease- This is one of the more common forms of plant disease that can affect your garden. It can seriously affect the flowering and the growth of plants. It can also cause some bad markings on the leaves and the body. Moulds, rusts and blackspots all belong to this form of plant disease as well as mildew. The best method of dealing with these diseases is prevention which can be achieved by planting plants naturally resistant to it. You can also ensure good air circulation to prevent their growth.

Bacterial Disease- There are also many plant diseases caused by bacteria. Just like with humans, when the immune system of plants go down, they become more prone to all kinds of diseases. These diseases are usually harder to control than those caused by fungi. They will cause darks streaks and sometime produce slime that can have a bad odour.

Nutrient Deficiency- Not all plant diseases can be caused by some foreign organism. Sometimes it could be lack of nutrients that can affect the health of a plant severely. If a certain nutrient is lacking in the soil, then the plant might be unable to develop fully. This is the case with a garden where the soil is only artificially filled with nutrients.

As we have mentioned before, plants have their own immune system which they use in dealing with diseases and foreign organisms that try to invade them. They have ingenious methods of dealing with foreign organisms that can carry diseases. They can parts of an infected area with some tissues that can prevent the spreading of the disease.

Sometimes, these mechanisms of plants are not enough in dealing with the infection. It is our responsibility to help our garden plants. There are methods that we can use such as the spraying of sulphur and other substances. We have to be careful in using such methods however. The materials that we use might be organic but their effects on the plants can be so powerful that it can be harmful as well. Sometimes it would be best to call the help of professionals once we have diagnosed that some of our plants are suffering from diseases.