Q & A; Gardening.

Byline: with Adrienne Wild

Your gardening questions answered. Send your questions to [email protected]

Q MY apples have scabby marks on the leaves. What's the cause? Roger White, by email

A THE airborne fungal disease apple scab is the problem. It survives winter on fallen leaves and appears in mid-spring as velvety olive-green blotches on leaves, which develop into dull black or grey scab marks. Blotches and cracks appear on the fruit as it matures. Leaves may also fall early.

There is little you can do other than prune out infected stems and bin the fallen leaves and any infected fruit in autumn. That will reduce the amount of fungus spores available to kick-start infections. This disease attacks apples plus trees and shrubs such as pyracantha, sorbus and cotoneaster.