Help with a disease.

[dirtdobber]

Hello all. My wife loves plants and we try our best to maintain them although neither of us are green thumbs. We purchased 2 of these...
[img]https://i678.photobucket.com/albums/vv149/dirtdobber7/IMG_0370.jpg[/img]


and now this...
[img]https://i678.photobucket.com/albums/vv149/dirtdobber7/IMG_0369.jpg[/img]
is causing the leaves to die and fall off. The trees are located on our back screen porch that faces east. They probably do not get a lot of direct sunlight at all but they seemed to be flourishing until now.
This is a scan I made of an actual leaf from the tree.
[img]https://i678.photobucket.com/albums/vv149/dirtdobber7/PlantFungus.jpg[/img]
Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks
Danny Womack
Cave Spring, Ga.
dcwomack@bellsouth.net

[applestar]

This reminds me of azalea lace bug damage on azaleas/rhodos/andromeda. Have you turned the leaves over and inspected the underside? If that's what the 2nd photo is, I need a closer look. The tiny pin-holes do suggest an insect pest though.

[cynthia_h]

Maybe scale? The plant looks like a privet to me (I have/had a privet here), and mine was attacked by scale. A privet down the street has rust rather than scale.

Maybe one of these attackers is going for your plants?

Cynthia H.
Sunset Zone 17, USDA Zone 9

[Kisal]

I vote for red spider mites. They can cause that kind of fine speckling on leaves. You can barely see them, unless you use a magnifying glass, but the presence of fine weblike threads on the plant would be a dead giveaway.

[dirtdobber]

I'll take a look at all of your options. Some additional info. I havent noticed anything on the underside of leaves but that warrants a much closer look.

I looked into aphids because of the sooty look to the leaves but everything seems to indicate that they are visible to the naked eye and I haven't noticed any visible pests.

Lastly, on some of the leaves there seems to be a web-like substance that will cover a random leaf here and there. It isn't like a network of webs that covers the entire tree or even spans a couple of leaves. It seems to only be spun from edge to edge on one leaf. But again no visible pests. Magnifying glass?

I'll try and get some additional pictures.


Thanks
Danny