Lupins their Pests and Diseases
Dirty great clumps of greenfly can infest your Lupins.
Lupins can be grown from the seed you collect.
If buying a potted plant see what the colour and spike is like before you buy. A good plant will last several years with little fungal problems.
If you want a second flush of flowers it is best to dead head the spires of blossom. Deadheading saves energy in the plant.
Lupin Problems and Treatments
- Slugs like the tender shoots and snails seem to have attached themselves to the stronger leaves this year in my garden. I need a lot of grit around the base of the plants before they start to grow or to buy some nematodes as the weather improves.
- Green fly gather in great quantities on my second flush of blooms and need to be washed off in soapy water or a systemic insecticide used.
- Weak Lupins or yellow leaves may be caused by too much lime as Lupins prefer an acid soil so apply sequestrine or an acid loving treatment.
- Powdery mildew may affect Lupins. Pull off infected leaves and burn rather than composting them
18 thoughts on “Lupins their Pests and Diseases”
Help!Ii purchased a healthy looking lupin last Friday from a local garden centre and planted it in a well lit bed, beside a hollyhock. I watered it in and have ensured it does not get dried out . I surrounded the stems with pet friendly slug grit and all seemed well. Today (Monday ) all of the leaves have gone limp and curled up but the flowering spikes seem OK what is happening? Can I save my plant?
The Lupin is stressed like you! Is it limp first thing in the morning? If not the problem is the sun and heat we have enjoyed for a few days. I would try shading the Lupin from the hottest bit of the sun until the weather changes. If the problem persists and you are going to loose the plant then I would go back to the garden centre and ask for a replacement.
My Lupins attract greenfly but you would have said that was a problem
Can you please tell me how you deadhead the lupin. I know if you deadhead them it gives them a better change of flowing again later but what do you take off. I know the flower itself goes brown but do you pull just the flower or the stem which the flower is on. Please help. Not the whole big stem obviously.
I cut off the flower spike when two thirds of the flowers have developed seedpods. I loose the top flowers opening but hope to get a second flush of new smaller flower spikes. Cut the spike off just below the bottom seedheads.
I have planted approx 6 Lupins in our flower bed and all seemed well, healthy looking leaves and flower, until: just a few days ago when some of the leaf stems
started to curl like a pigs tail and now some of the flowers are just bending over, stems seems firm to the touch, no bugs that I can see, they are in good well draining mulched soil in slight shade, Help what do I do? John W.
Try plenty of water
A few of my lupin plants have developed black spots on their foliage. Its like they are spattered in tar. Can you help?
I have the same problem as John and it is not lack of water, I lost one then two, I pulled them up fond a a small black slug on the root of one and wondered if that was it and how did the slug get to the root, do slugs go down to the root?I applied even more slug pellets but then another plant started to wilt. I paid a lot for this years Lupins, mostly from Holland but I could cry at the state of them now.and I was so looking forward to a really good display.
No help here then, no one has any ideas?
Neil, Google Lupin anthracnose! I’m experiencing the same. I’m in Canada, but I have the same spiralling stems. So disappointing. I don’t know what to do about it unfortunately. They say to rip the diseased plant out – which would mean every one I’ve planted.
I planted my lupine in a pot and now they are loosing all flowers on one side and when i barely moved the pot the flowers fell off and they are like curving over please help me thank you
I have a beautiful purple lupin in my garden. This is the second year and it is flourishing but it also has pink flowerheads . Some have four heads. Is anything wrong.
I can’t find any examples of what is destroying my lupins.
About 6 inches below the flower the stem breaks and each of the broken ends is splayed as if it has exploded from inside. This has happened to every flower for the past months.
Last year they were happy. This year they had some greenfly which I sprayed.
Is this a bug inside the stem?
our first lot of lupins just curled up and died, so tried some more in a different place, all fine and dandy exept that a blue one has headed for the sky, and each flowerlet has turned into a new mini plant, ive cut it off now, removed a few of the plantlets to see if they will grow on.. i just wonder if theres a name for this? i know that some times plants will grow in a peculiar way i think its called stratisfying or something where the stems all fuse together, but this isnt the case with the lupin, the flower spike was growing as usual but each pea shaped flowerlet was forming leaves right up to the tip, any ideas?
from mrs B Vickery hants..
My lupin flower spikes are fine no problem, but , every leaf stem suddenly collapses probably about half way down its stem. With no visable sign of pests.
The comment above is exactly what is happening to my lupine which were planted a week ago .
Lupine in the other plant of the garden planted about 4 weeks ago are fine
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