Anyone else seeing lots of outdoor mold on your trees and plants? (Pittsburgh: allergy)

[Hopes]

I am so excited about the warm weather bringing an early spring, thinking my gardens would be lush and beautiful this year. But I'm noticing lots of mold on my property this year. My crabapple trees, rose bushes, ivy, and basil are developing various molds. Anyone else noticing this? How do we kill this/prevent this? Will Chemlawn service kill plant molds?

[greg42]

I don't know, but I certainly was wondering about mold out there yesterday as I mowed the lawn. The yard stuff doesn't usually make my asthma flare up anymore (pollen doesn't seem to be the issue these days) but it was pretty bad yesterday (not life-threatening bad at all, just quite noticeable when usually mowing the lawn doesn't do much if anything). I'm pretty allergic to several types of mold.

[Hopes]

You must have a tree allergy too. That's what's highest right now.

You can sign up to have daily emails sent to you with the pollen count readings.

AAAAI - Pollen Counts - Pittsburgh, PA

AAAAI - Pollen Counts Login Account

[greg42]

Depends. I've had three courses of testing in my life, and shots for a decent part of that time. The last time I was tested, sometime in the mid to late 90s, I was negative for all the pollens, including trees (which would as you say be strong right now), including ragweed (late summer), which I had tested positive to in the past. Dust, dust mites and mold have remained pretty constant.

This stuff changes sometimes, and it could have changed again. One of the things that's changed is that I'm more likely to get an asthma reaction to allergens than before. It's always been runny nose and sneezing in the past; I've been taking antihistamines pretty much constantly for 30 years or so. Still is those mostly, but yesterday was quite strange. My asthma is so mild I'm not even on a med for it. Don't even have a current emergency inhaler. And even yesterday, while I might have taken a hit if I had it, I didn't strictly need it.

Anyway, didn't mean to turn this into medical thread from garden thread , but that's what it made me think of. If you see a ton of mold, I figure that is probably what I was experiencing as well, although I'm not so used to seeing it visually outside. I just know it's there. The spruce tree out front did give off a ton of pollen.

FWIW I don't think you want Chemlawn messing with anything but the grass. If you're lucky, they don't mess that up. My one neighbor has used them for years, likes them, his grass looks nice. Other neighbor's also looks nice, AFAIK he does it himself. Mine looks like crap and I don't have time for it right now and I don't have the inclination to pour out money to a service because I find the idea of pouring a bunch of chemicals out there to make a pristine lawn pretty stupid. Dunno what I'm going to do. There's going to be more other stuff than grass soon probably. Dandelions seem to be a bumper crop everywhere this year, except for those throwing a ton of stuff on their lawn.

This isn't helping though, maybe ask in the Garden forum? I didn't notice any visible mold, though I can't say I've looked too closely at the plants this spring, just kind of seen them in passing.

[ebyrnes]

I can't say that I have, although most of what is in the yard is new (first spring in this house). I was thrilled to see about 10 peonies pop up, and it appears that they have buds. My fingers are crossed that they will actually bloom. I had some in Philly that did not bloom while I was there (it takes them a few years to settle in).