Poorly Buddleia

mardatha

My prized expensive (a tenner on ebay!) buddleia has gone all mouldy, new leaves white and powdery and crumbling to the touch. What is this and is it fixable?

valk_scot

Well, it's undoubtably a powdery mildew of some sort.It's usually triggered off by some sort of water stress, like periods of underwatering followed by overwatering. Or it can just come out of no-where.

You can try treating it with a spray on fungicide. Or if you don't do chemicals, leave some milk out in the sun for 24-48 hours to go sour, dilute it down with three parts water to one part milk and spray the leaves on both sides. This works in the same way as yoghurt works for yeast infections down under, it changes the acidity of the leaves so that the fungus doesn't thrive.