I recently bought a Tayberry plant from a company online and it came with purple spots on the leaves.
Here’s a picture I took right after opening it:
I contacted them and the guy said, “Yeah, that’s common - pretty much all of our Tayberries have that. It’s all on the 2nd year leaves. But the new leaves should be fine. The plant will still produce fruit.”
Feeling hesitant and perhaps against my better judgment, I decided to give it a shot and see how it develops. I trimmed off the leaves that had the spots. I put it on the other side of the house, away from my other Blackberries.
That was 3 weeks ago. I have since noticed new purple spots appearing. (There’s also purple along the fringes of new leaves, but I assume that’s normal.)
My questions are:
- Is this normal? Should I be concerned?
- Is there any way to rid the plant of the purple-spotting-fungus, whatever it is?
- Does this guy who sold it to me need to admit he has a fungus problem, stop selling plants with visible fungus to customers, and start afresh with clean stock? I’ve got to admit, I am a bit miffed about it. But maybe Tayberries are extremely prone to these types of things and it’s really no big deal. Maybe it’s pretty normal to get these sorts of plants with fungus already on them? It’s a 2nd year plant.
Any thoughts from experienced Tayberry (or Blackberry) growers?