photinia
By Inverglen
Middlesex,
United Kingdom 
I planted a short hedge of photinia for my neighbour two summers ago to make a division between our two driveways. The line of shrubs has grown very well and become lovely and bushy with light pruning. Everything appeared to be going well but this winter red spots have appeared on many leaves, some quite heavily spotted. The leaves have all stayed on the plants and there is a super collection of buds of new growth. I believe this is a fungal disease and may have been caused because the plant reacted against our long spells of wet weather. I sprayed with a fungicide about a month ago and repeated it a few days ago. My question is ...does the plant normally recover with this treatment or will the leaves probably always have this problem. Any advice of any kind would be welcome.
25 Feb, 2009
Answers
Wait and see what the new leaves look like, hopefully they will be OK. This is a tough plant and should survive. It responds well to pruning so maybe you will have to cut them down a little to get clean shoots. If the problem persists come back and we'll see what we can suggest.
28 Feb, 2009
Unfortunately I can't make any judgement on how these do in the UK, but they are very popular in the southeastern US because they are VERY tough. You practically can't kill them. We planted some 20 years ago for that same reason and they have been doing great with little attention. I am in zone 7 so the temps should be about the same as yours, the only thing I can see as a problem is that it might not flower but then you didn't plant them for the flowers.
26 Feb, 2009