Help - Mould on fruit trees

Jinx

I hope you experienced gardners can help.

I have 3 fruit trees, 2 apple and 1 cherry and they all seem to have white mould on them!! Having searched a bit, there seems to be conflicting advice on removing them or treating them...confused!

They all have nice buds and leaves at the mo and I would love to save them if I can.... Please advise a newbie to gardening...

Thanks
Jinx

Kay_Peel

If this is the first year that you've seen this white mould, then you might be able to deal with it quite quickly and effectively. I'm assuming that you have been visited by the bleddy (excuse my language!) woolly aphid from nearby trees.

Arm yourself with a soft toothbrush, or moistened cotton buds or tissues and dust off as much of the white stuff as you can, into a tissue or some newspaper. Then blast the areas where the mould was with some washing up liquid in a spray bottle filled with warm water.

If you act NOW and if it is the pesky flippin' stinking woolly aphid then you should be able to halt any damage to the trees.

I've been visited by the woolly aphid in the past. When I didn't take any action, they caused untold damage to the leaves and fruit and I had to cut out parts of branches. But the apple trees survived and give me plenty of apples each year.

There's not a lot you can do to prevent woolly aphids (unless you investigate insecticides). They are all over other trees and just happen to land in our gardens.

Don't forget your toothbrush.:beer:

Jinx

Thanks Kay Peel, I'll give this a try today