Last year I bought a couple of large (#5 container) "common purple lilac" shrubs. I didn't get around to planting them right away, one of them I got in the ground in the fall, and the other, which I still can't decide where to plant, spent the winter on my deck. The one in the ground is doing very well. The one on the deck has some brown ends on the leaves, and some strange slits/cuts in the leaves. Is this some sort of insect damage? Blight? Nutritional issue? I should mention when the two of them were sitting on the deck last summer they both got some horrendous leaf blight.

I thing it's just normal wind damage or a contact injury. It's definitely not from insects, disease, blight or deficiencies.

Thanks, this one looks a little more sinister:

It may have been an insect chew or something else. There just is not enough evidence to know what that was from. I will mention to you that my lilacs were always prone to mildew. I controlled it very well by putting milk diluted by 50% with water and spraying the plants while the sun was directly shining on them. For some reason there is a reaction between the milk and the sun that is necessary for this to work.

MissS wrote: ↑Tue Apr 26, 2022 9:01 pm I will mention to you that my lilacs were always prone to mildew. I controlled it very well by putting milk diluted by 50% with water and spraying the plants while the sun was directly shining on them. For some reason there is a reaction between the milk and the sun that is necessary for this to work.

Well, the leaves got brown spots which grew to cover the whole leaf until they fell off. I don't know if that's mildew. I sprayed copper fungicide, Daconil, etc. and nothing seemed to help much.

Sadly, lilacs will not grow in my climate.

I still think some insect is causing this, from today, first (blurry) picture is a squash leaf, next two are on a Sunorange that is next to the lilac: