Help! We're plagued with coral spot - tiny little orange dots on anything
that's wood. If I've spied it on a living plant then I've pruned back to
sound wood but how can I get rid of it from every other woody surface. It's
on scraps of wood fallen from the old sycamore, the steps, the summer house,
the compost bins (this is particularly worrying me as I'm afraid it will
live in the compost and get spread back next spring ). Does anyone know
anything about it or how to get rid of it?

TIA
--A

In article ,
Alison o.uk wrote:
Help! We're plagued with coral spot - tiny little orange dots on anything
that's wood. If I've spied it on a living plant then I've pruned back to
sound wood but how can I get rid of it from every other woody surface. It's
on scraps of wood fallen from the old sycamore, the steps, the summer house,
the compost bins (this is particularly worrying me as I'm afraid it will
live in the compost and get spread back next spring ). Does anyone know
anything about it or how to get rid of it?

Yes. You can't.

Don't worry about the compost - the spores are everywhere. It spreads
in cool, wet conditions (what? here? no!) and fairly rarely causes
trouble to living plants. In general, it is found on wood that is
already dead for some other reason, and does not of itself cause the
death of a branch. In suitable conditions, it seems to invade dead
wood within a couple of weeks of the wood dying.

So the executive summary is "Don't Panic!"


Regards,
Nick Maclaren,
University of Cambridge Computing Service,
New Museums Site, Pembroke Street, Cambridge CB2 3QH, England.
Email:
Tel.: +44 1223 334761 Fax: +44 1223 334679