Leaf Spot Fungus

Leaf spot is an incredibly common occurrence in anyone’s home or garden, and it’s difficult to keep your plants from ever getting it - don’t feel bad if you think your plants may have contracted leaf spot! It’s very easy to treat, and it most likely wasn’t because you did anything wrong. Fungal spores are floating all over the place all the time and one of them is bound to end up on a plant eventually.

It’s best to know for sure if your plants have leaf spot or not before you begin treatment, so here are the tell-tale signs!

Early on, you’ll notice (as the name implies) small random brown papery spots or brown spots with yellow halos. It’s best to catch these while they’re small, which is one reason plant parents would do well to inspect the leaves of their plants frequently.

While the spots are still small, isolate your plant from the rest of your plants and treat the spots with our roll-on copper treatment to keep them from spreading and killing the spores!

Also, discontinue misting while the plant is afflicted with the fungus. You don’t want to help the fungus grow!

As the fungus progresses, the spots grow larger and larger until they join together and the spots become more like blotches and then gradually fill the whole leaf, which will then fall off.

If you don’t catch this early and it progresses to the point of losing leaves, the copper octanoate treatment will not be strong enough and a stronger treatment will then be necessary.

To make the treatment, mix water and 3% isopropyl alcohol at a 1:1 ratio and add a small amount of baby soap or Dawn. Neem oil is an optional good idea to add to this mixture.

If you don’t want to make the mixture yourself, we sell bottles of our own treatment mixture pre-made here!

Before treating, make sure to isolate the affected plant and collect all of the dead leaves (including the ones that have fallen off) and dispose of them away from any of your plants - the dead leaves are covered in spores looking to propagate.

Spray down the entire plant with your treatment and then continue to monitor its health. It may take a few applications until it’s all the way back on its feet, but you can help it along by making sure you don’t miss any spots while you’re spraying it down. While it’s recovering, remove any new brown or yellow areas as you notice them.