Gardeners told to add natural item to soil this autumn to stop killer disease

Autumn's vibrant leaves might be a sight for sore eyes, but beware the dreaded black spot disease which can prevent your roses from blooming ever again. Damp and chilly autumnal weather is prime time for black spot to invade gardens, a notorious fungal disease that strikes roses with large, dark circular marks on yellowing foliage. Cathy, a gardener and co-founder of The Wieders Garden has shared that black spot is unlikely to kill roses, but it will make the flower very vulnerable to the weather, pests and other diseases.

She explained: "Blackspot is not usually lethal in and of itself, but it can severely weaken a rose to the point where it won't survive unfavourable weather (protracted drought conditions, for example) or a very harsh winter. Since it affects the leaves, plants that struggle to produce adequate food can't produce the same number of buds and those it does produce are often smaller and not the best form." Beat black spot before it beats your roses this autumn.



While battling black spot post-invasion is tricky, keeping this fungal fiend at bay is surprisingly straightforward with an everyday product, reports the Express . Cracked corn, more commonly found in bird feeders or at the bottom of a chicken coop, also doubles as a gardener's ally against soil-based fungi. Cathy said: "Cracked corn is an inexpensive source of the beneficial fungus Trichoderma which research has shown to be an effective fungal biopesticide.

We can attest to its efficacy. "We have been treating our rosebeds with cracked corn since 2005 and have noticed a dramatic decrease in the incidence of blackspot when we put it down in early spring compared with those years when we either didn't use it at all or put it down much later in the season." Black spot is only able to spread onto rose foliage through moisture, but cracked corn helps improve soil drainage so there is less humidity around plants and helps reduce the chances of rainwater splashing onto leaves.

You can find cracked corn through certain gardening centres but it is also available at many online stores such as Amazon or eBay . All you need to do is sprinkle a generous amount of cracked corn on rose beds before mulching them or covering them in compost to help roses stay healthy. However, the easiest way to keep black spot away is to keep your garden tidy this autumn and take care to pick up any decaying autumn leaves.

Cathy said: "Cleaning up any damaged or infected leaf litter goes a long way toward helping keep fungal infections like blackspot from spreading through a garden." You can also minimise infection by making sure roses are properly cared for by weeding, watering and feeding them when appropriate, but you can also buy rose species that is less likely to be susceptible to the disease. Cathy added: "Choosing varieties of roses that are known to be naturally resistant to blackspot can also help, but resistant does not mean immune and even the highly resistant Knock-outs can develop blackspot in the "right" (or wrong) circumstances.

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