White, enlarged flesh of Azalea gall
Although daffodils may stand proudly in the midst of freezing, drizzly spring days, your azaleas may not appreciate the moisture all that much. As we all know, there’s nothing on earth that loves damp, moist, wet, chilly, drippy, cool places as much as mold/fungi (I know that was repetitive, but I couldn’t resist all those adjectives!). And what does mold have to do with azaleas? Azalea gall is a fungus that looks nasty on your shrubs and can cause loss of bloom from season to season. Molds are a kind of fungus, as you all know, which cannot produce their own food through photosynthesis so they break down whatever it is they live on to survive. They spread through spores, recreating themselves as long as the food lasts. If the food is your azalea plant, then that’s not so good.
Rainy, cool weather can help spread leaf gall on azaleas and rhodies, especially those in shady parts of the lawn or garden where rain is dripping from trees onto shrubs planted just below-what may be a beautiful garden design can be tricky when it comes to avoiding fungal transmission. The spores of the azalea gall fungus can be spread like a human cold, through wind, leaves rubbing against each other or water dripping from one leaf to the next. The fungus must be removed from the plant and surrounding area with care, like one might take leaves off a rosebush that has black spot.
Azaleas are most susceptible to gall when young leaves following bloom first emerge. If the leaf galls are too numerous to remove by hand, a fungicide spray is recommended. Here are some ag extensions with good resources and fungal spray recommendations.
http://msucares.com/newsletters/pests/infobytes/19990415.htm
http://hyg.ipm.illinois.edu/article.php?id=64
Let’s keep mold where it belongs-on a lovely piece of stinky cheese and out of the garden!
Plumstone 