Polka raspberry canes must be among my greatest achievements in gardening. Of course, I had little to do with that. I just planted the canes, prune them appropriately, made sure they didn't die of drought, tied them against the fence, fed them occasionally, and that's pretty much it. I've never seen sign of insect damage - not from aphids or anything else for that matter. The birds leave them alone (maybe I shouldn't have said that!), goodness knows why because the red fruit is delicious, but now and then rust disease attacks the canes. I say now and then but that's a bit of an exaggeration. In the 5 years or so that I have been growing Polka raspberries, rust disease has attacked the leaves twice. The first time was several years ago and I was worried to see the orange dots on the leaves but the plants withstood the attack and have been free of problems until this year. This year, I have spotted rust again. (Apologies for the rather out of focus quality of my photographs) but the pustules are only about 1mm dia.
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| Rust pustule on Polka raspberry leaf |
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| Rust pustule on Polka raspberry leaf |
If the problem of rust were on my roses, then I would use a fungicide to deal with it but, as it is, with the raspberry fruit developing, I shall simply pick off many of the infected leaves and throw them into the dustbin. Here is a link to the
RHS webpage on rust disease and dealing with it.
