waaaaah

[metaphortunate]

My fuchsias are succumbing to some sort of fuchsia disease. New growth, buds and leaves, comes out pale green, fuzzy, and sort of twisted and clubbed. It's very Elephant Man like, if the Elephant Man were more of an Elephant Plant. Plant body horror.

Something horrible has decided to make a home by gluing together the leaves of my primroses.

Birds eat my seedlings down to the stalk. The red chard is totally gone, nothing but a few sad stems. The kale is almost gone. But it's true of anything I plant. The spinach gave up. I tried putting chicken wire on top of the pots, which worked great until the seedlings got too tall for it, at which point I had to take it off and the birds began their reign of destruction. Feathery little bastards.

Today I am a sad and frustrated gardener. Any thoughts? I have this "anti-disease" spray that claims to be okay for organic gardening and smells like vinegar so it's probably worthless. And an anti-bug spray soap that seems to keep the aphids off, anyway.

Comments

[cofax7]

Apparenlty in the Bay Area there's only a couple of fuschias that are appropriate--all the rest succumb to the fuschia fungus. But I don't remember what kind it is!

[metaphortunate]

That can't be right: I see fuchsias everywhere in people's front gardens, plus there's a whole Fuchsia Walk in GGP!

[cofax7]

Not a fungus! But I'm not altogether wrong. There's a bug, the gall mite, that infects most varieties of fuschia in the Bay Area; see this article, which recommends some treatment. I don't know if this is what's wrong with your plant, but it could be.