Wednesday, September 23, 2015

Boxwoods

After reading a variety of articles this afternoon and hearing stories of this blight, I decided to waste no time.  I treated about half of the boxwoods on campus and will finish tomorrow.  I am doing a foliar drench of Insignia fungicide and a granular root absorbed treatment of Heritage systemic fungicide.  I can say with confidence I haven't seen any signs of this blight on our Boxwoods to date.  Every article I read says preventative treatments are required as curative treatments are not very effective and require treatments every 14 days.  I would venture to guess that a systemic treatment made preventatively would last a long time.  In the case of grass, we use systemic fungicides on 21 day intervals. However, every day we mow 1/10th of the plant away and with it, goes some fungicide.  In the case of a boxwood, that fungicide stays in the plant for a longer time because they are slow growing and we don't remove material other than pruning once a year.