Content
The large size of flowers, a variety of bright colors and abundance of flowering provide lilies with stable popularity among gardeners. However, they cannot be called unpretentious and problem-free when growing: they react to errors in care and neglect of preventive measures to protect against diseases and pests by reducing their decorativeness. One of the common symptoms is that the leaves of the lily turn yellow. Having discovered it, it is important to correctly and timely identify the cause, otherwise the plants may die.
Why do lily leaves turn yellow?
Having noticed that the leaves of a lily are turning yellow, first of all you need to carefully examine it. Fungal diseases typical of a culture are easy to identify by a set of symptoms. If there are no signs of disease or pest damage, it is necessary to analyze the quality of plant care.
Improper watering
Most species of lilies are native to the tropical forests of Southeast Asia. Therefore, they are most comfortable with consistently high air humidity combined with relatively moderate soil moisture.
Flowers cannot boast of high heat and drought resistance.If you leave them in such conditions without regular watering, they quickly lose moisture and begin to suffocate due to overheating roots. As a result, the leaves turn yellow and dry out, starting from the tips.
Plants will also not survive in a flowerbed turned into a swamp. In constantly waterlogged soil, roots and bulbs quickly rot. Because of this, plants do not receive water and nutrients in the required volume, the leaves turn yellow and fall off.
Improper watering for lilies is especially dangerous when the flower bed is crowded and/or planted in direct sunlight
Lack or excess of fertilizers
Yellow lily leaves are often the result of improper feeding. If the cause is a lack of nutrients, this manifests itself in the following:
- Nitrogen. First, the veins turn yellow, then all the leaves completely, starting with the oldest. The growth and development of lilies slows down, the stems become deformed, and the leaves become smaller.
- Iron. The leaves turn yellow completely, the veins retain their natural shade. The deficiency first appears on the youngest leaf blades.
- Magnesium. It looks like there is an iron deficiency, but the lily leaves turn yellow from bottom to top and develop a herringbone pattern. The leaves curl and wrinkle.
- Zinc. The leaves do not turn completely yellow - chaotically scattered spots appear, gradually changing the shade to bronze.
- Bor. The leaf blades first become pale green, then turn yellow and curl into a tube. The veins turn brown or black.
- Manganese.The veins retain their natural shade, the leaves become greenish-yellow.
Overfeeding of plants can also be identified:
- Nitrogen. It manifests itself as active growth and fattening of green mass to the detriment of flowering. In excess, it acidifies the soil; in combination with excessively abundant watering, this ensures the development of root rot, which is why the yellowing process begins.
- Phosphorus. It interferes with the absorption of iron and zinc; lily leaves turn yellow, indicating their deficiency.
- Calcium. With its excess, the plant is not able to normally absorb iron and manganese, and chlorosis between the veins, typical of their deficiency, appears.
- Manganese. The oldest leaves turn yellow completely, leaving only the veins green. On younger ones, light spots of different sizes and shapes appear.
An excess of certain macro- and microelements for lilies can be worse than their deficiency
Diseases and pests
If you choose the right place for planting lilies and provide them with proper care, the plants are rarely affected by diseases and pests. Due to the attack of pathogens and insects, the leaves turn yellow mainly on specimens that the gardener abandons after planting.
Bacterial rot
Also called late blight. The most common disease that causes lilies to turn yellow leaves. Its development is provoked by too much and/or frequent watering, especially in combination with the presence of mechanical damage on the bulb.
First, watery brownish spots appear on the leaves, then they turn yellow and dry out. The base of the stem softens and changes color to black-brown.In particularly severe cases, the soil becomes covered with a layer of mold, giving off an unpleasant putrid odor.
If bacterial rot appears on the above-ground part, this means that the bulb is severely damaged and cannot be saved.
Rust
The first sign of rust is small, fuzzy spots or raised pads of a bright saffron hue on the underside of lily leaves. Gradually they increase in size, become denser, and change color to rusty or brick. The front side of the leaf plate turns yellow.
If nothing is done, rust very quickly spreads to plants in the neighborhood. The leaves of the first affected lilies turn yellow, dry out and die, they stop growing and die.
Rust is an almost universal disease, dangerous for many garden crops, both fruit-bearing and ornamental.
Fitum (blue mold)
It appears in swampy and poor soil, less often after frequent rainfall. Accordingly, the reason for the development of phytum may be the initially incorrect choice of place for planting lilies, and illiterate, excessively abundant watering.
A whitish or bluish coating appears on all parts of the plant, including the bulb. If you leave this unattended, the bulb begins to rot, the stems and leaves turn yellow, become covered with brown spots, and dry out. The entire above-ground part of the plant dies.
Phytum is easy to notice at an early stage of development, so in most cases lilies can still be saved
Fusarium
A pathogen that lives in the soil and penetrates the tissue of the bulb through microdamages in the integumentary scales. On the aboveground part, the disease does not appear for a long time; the leaves and stem of the lily begin to turn yellow and wither, when it almost completely rots and the plant cannot be saved.
The first signs of fusarium - small black-brown spots on the bulb - can only be noticed if you dig it out of the soil. Then it turns black completely, breaks up into separate scales and rots. The above-ground part stops developing, the leaves lose their tone, turn yellow, and the stems droop. If it’s warm and dry outside, it dries out quickly; if it’s rainy and cool, it rots.
The causative agent of fusarium is distinguished by its vitality - fungal spores in the soil remain viable for up to three years
Gray mold (botrytis)
The first signs of gray rot on lilies appear quickly - 3-4 days after infection. Vague, seemingly watery yellowish-brown spots of irregular shape with unclear boundaries appear on the leaves, stems, peduncles, and flowers themselves. Then they increase in size - the leaves turn yellow completely, covered with a layer of grayish fleecy coating with small black inclusions.
The disease is considered incurable. The process of its development can be slowed down by cutting off the stems, leaves, and flowers of the lily affected by the pathogen before they turn yellow entirely. However, under suitable conditions, the fungus becomes active again.
Conditions favorable for the development of gray rot are long-term hot weather and frequent rains.
Chlorosis
A non-infectious disease typical of both garden and house lilies - their leaves turn yellow due to a lack of iron. It primarily appears on young leaves located closer to the top of the stem. They turn yellow almost completely, only the veins retain their natural shade.
If nothing is done, the entire above-ground part gradually turns yellow. Then the roots die, and the lily bulb dries out last.
Those already weakened due to planting in the wrong place and illiterate care are especially sensitive to iron deficiency.
Nematodes
Root or stem nematodes settle respectively in the lily bulb or the lower part of the stem, penetrating inside through microdamages and gradually rising. Small, thin worms do not come to the surface of the plant; it is impossible to detect them when examining the plant.
Nematodes eat away lily tissues from the inside, simultaneously contaminating them with waste from their own vital activity, which gradually spreads throughout the entire plant through the sap flow system. The leaves of poisoned lilies gradually turn yellow, lose their tone, and they stop blooming and developing. If the gardener does not take any measures to protect the plant, over 2-3 seasons the leaves of the lily change shape, become unnaturally rounded, and it dies.
Getting rid of nematodes using folk remedies is problematic
What to do if lilies turn yellow
If lily leaves turn yellow due to errors in care, no additional measures need to be taken: it is enough to correct them, and the condition of the plants will return to normal relatively quickly (in 15-20 days) by itself. However, when this indicates a disease or pest attack, lilies whose leaves turn yellow require targeted treatment.
What can be done depending on the diagnosis:
- Adjust watering. Lilies prefer fairly moderate but regular soil moisture.You should not let the substrate in the flower bed dry out, do not flood it, or alternate periods of drought with rare but abundant watering. In all cases, the leaves of the plants turn yellow. The water must be settled and heated to room temperature: if it is cold, and even more so, icy, the leaves of the lily can turn yellow en masse and fall off even after a single watering.
- Provide proper feeding. If lily leaves turn yellow due to a deficiency of basic macroelements (nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium), you can feed them with universal fertilizers. In general, during the season it is better to use specialized complex products for bulbous plants, which are distinguished by the presence of microelements needed by lilies in the required proportion. Any fertilizer, when the leaves of flowers turn yellow, is applied strictly according to the instructions. Increasing the concentration of the solution or the frequency of fertilizing, hoping to quickly restore the decorative effect of lilies, is an extremely bad idea.
- Treat with fungicides. Copper-containing preparations are destructive to most pathogenic fungi. Not only the lilies themselves, whose leaves turn yellow, are sprayed, the solution is spilled on the soil in the flowerbed, and the neighboring plants are treated. Fungicides are also used for treating bulbs before planting, and for preventive spraying of plantings during the season, if the weather is favorable for the activation of pathogens for a long time or they affect other garden crops.
- Apply special insecticides to the soil when planting. If lily leaves turn yellow due to nematodes, it is quite difficult to get rid of them.It is better to protect flowers from the pest in advance by adding long-acting preparations in the form of granules or powder to the soil during planting, which retain the desired effect for one or even several seasons.
- Regularly treat lilies with immuno-, biostimulants, and other drugs that increase their resistance to any negative external influences. In healthy, strong plants, the leaves turn yellow much less often than in weakened ones; they better tolerate unfavorable weather, errors in care, and successfully resist diseases and pest attacks.
The best prevention of any problems with lilies is quality care for them.
Conclusion
If the leaves of a lily turn yellow, you need to understand as quickly as possible why the plant is reacting this way. Without knowing the reasons, it is impossible to take the correct measures necessary to neutralize them. Most often, this is one of the symptoms of fungal diseases or a consequence of a pest attack, but the leaves of lilies can also turn yellow due to the fault of the gardener who did not provide the plants with proper care.
