The best ways to prevent plant disease
Plants are living things just like us and are able to get sick just as easily if precautions aren’t taken. Just like our homes, our gardens need to be well maintained in order to make sure the environment and everything in it remains healthy.
One of the biggest disasters for any gardener is when a plant becomes diseased and this disease spreads around the garden. Often people will become overwhelmed and write off their garden as done for when the disease gets out of control.
For a plant disease to thrive in your garden, 3 conditions need to be satisfied. These conditions are:
- A pathogen
- A host
- Environmental conditions that promote the disease
If you eliminate any 1 of these 3 conditions, you can successfully prevent the spread of plant disease in your garden. Let’s take a look at the top ways to protect your garden from plant disease.
Examine plants for disease before buying
The best way to prevent disease from spreading in your garden is to never introduce it in the first place. A good way to do this is to screen all of the plants you buy to make sure that they are healthy.
It’s good to examine photos and diagrams that explain what a healthy plant looks like. You can then train yourself to quickly identify which plants are liabilities to your garden.
The quality of roots is something that not enough people check when buying plants. Ideally roots should be bright and abundant in a healthy plant, not dark and mushy.
Remain vigilant against insects
While there are plenty of garden insects that are beneficial to plants, there are just as many if not more that are detrimental. The damage these bugs to do plants is not only cosmetic as they can bring with them nasty bacteria and viruses.
Sometimes the best way to control problem insects is to introduce a natural predator like spiders or a praying mantis. A healthy garden will rely on these predators to shepherd the plants and protect them from opportunistic bugs.
Clean up during the fall
Leaving lots of dead plants and leaves around creates and environment where diseases can thrive. Big piles of dead leaves that fall from the tree during autumn should be cleared away before diseases establish themselves and then start infecting new leaves in the spring.