Buxus Sempervirens box blight?

Found it on Amazon after your recommendation noisette.

Appears to have been shipped from the UK but it's the German product approved by German authorities.

From what I read from Topbuxus themselves, it's going through regulatory processes in the UK and they hope to have it for sale in 2024 depending on how long that takes. It'll also have a different name than XenTari for the UK market.

They state it has been approved by most mainland European countries already.

Have given my box plants an all over spray which is somewhat lucky as it seems I may have them in some of the other bushes.

However, I'm not convinced the one I posted in the picture doesn't have both caterpillars AND blight as the others that I suspect have caterpillars only don't look exactly the same.

Anyway, time will tell, thanks again for the recommendation. I've been picking off any caterpillars I can see and disposing of them, although they're easy to see once found they're quite difficult to spot initially due to the denseness of some of the bushes (not pictured).

Do you happen to know if once you've made a batch of spray it has to be used there and then or can it be left in the container for future use? 3g of powder makes up a big batch so have used less with less water as it's quite expensive here in the UK.

Thanks again!

 

Hello, I've kept the mixture for a couple of days, but no longer. I honestly don't know how long it would keep, but as it's sold in powder form, not very long I suspect.

 

Hi @noisette47,

Sprayed the plant last week and spent today cutting out the dead growth. Found around 10 live caterpillars so am wondering if I sprayed correctly.

When spraying do you rummage deep inside the plant and soak it through or just give the outside a coating?

Thanks for your help.

 

Hello CBF It's a sound policy to drench anything being treated for pests as they often shelter on the underside of leaves. The treatment should certainly have worked by now, so I'd give it another spray if you can and if no rain forecast for a couple of days. Fingers crossed that it's not a case of the little blighters becoming resistant to the bacteria!

 

Hi @noisette47

Thanks for taking the time to reply, it's very much appreciated.

As luck would have it there was a very light shower just after I had sprayed it, but it was very light. I also didn't spend too much time prying the insides open to soak them.

Will definitely give it another go! Finding a row of days with no rain in the UK can be challenging

 

Just a little update. The original box in the images is looking much better. I don't think it has box blight and there weren't huge amounts of caterpillars in it but giving it a spray a couple of times with TopBuxus Xentari, TopBuxus Health-Mix and more recently TopBuxus Grow plus cutting out all the problem areas I'm hopeful of a full recovery.

It does have a few patchy areas where large amounts of dead foliage needed to be removed but I'm hoping over the next few years it'll fill out.

On another positive note it seems the suggestion of box caterpillar saved a couple of other box plants I have as they had caterpillar and I wasn't even aware. They've all been sprayed with Xentari and the others mentioned above and are doing well and filling out after some lengthy handpicking of the huge mess of debris the caterpillars left behind. Quite satisfying finding shrivelled up black remains of caterpillars after they nearly destroyed my prized plants.

So mainly just a big thanks to @noisette47 and for the suggestions and others for adding to the conversation.

Being much wiser I can now hopefully keep on top of these issues yearly and while it's now an expensive hobby to keep these healthy, at least I won't lose some already expensive plants.

 

Hi CBF Glad to hear that the Box is better! You could cut out some expense by just using Bacillus thuringiensis and a general-purpose fertiliser like Growmore