Take a look outside, and you might see that your crape myrtle’s leaves are turning shades of yellow, orange and red and falling to the ground. Is this a sign that autumn is near?

Not quite. This time of year, it’s more likely you are witnessing something called Cercospora leaf spot.

“This is a very common disease we see late in the summer on crape myrtles,” said Clark Robertson, an LSU AgCenter horticulture agent in Livingston Parish. “It tends to be worse in years where we get a lot of rainfall and humid conditions.”

Cercospora leaf spot is a fungal disease that lurks in gardens year-round, waiting for the warm, wet conditions in which it thrives to attack crape myrtles. It releases toxins that cause small, yellow-to-brown spots to form on leaves. These infected leaves then change colo

See Full Page