Help! What is on my oregano?!

My beloved oregano has developed a problem.

I divided my baby a little over three weeks ago, and it was just fine! But today I noticed blotches onto the leaves. Orange tinged, mostly roundish shaped splotches. Only on the tops of the oregano. Checking the bottoms of the stems and theres nothing from the base about halfway up . I have sat here now for twenty minutes and I cant find ANY bugs, except for a little brown caterpiller on the wood mulch nearby.  No strange smells.

Our weather has been just awful. We went from very cool and frosting overnights until early mid May, and there was NO gradual change. Mid-May unleashed a heat wave which baked everything as it was waking up, and brought with it freak storms with torrents of pelting rain, high winds, and even crushing hail two weeks back. My areas local forecasts have been averaging about 5 degrees warmer on the daily than we should be at, with daytime temps spiking back up to almost 30 some days. Humidity has been equally insane- some days its like soup, some days its fresh. I am mentioning all this in case this is symptomatic of questionable weather.

This patch of oregano is well established at four years old, and it is beloved to me. Lol. Of all the herbs I have this one is my favourite. Please help me identify what is on my poor oregano. Is it just from this insidious weather? Is it disease? I dont think I have ever seen oregano with disease before :( Any advice would be so appreciated!

Hi Sionannin, i've seen those spots before, but never thought much of it.
Not meaning it's not a disease or something natural that happens to plants in stress.
You have cut the root ball in four? In late spring that is not the time when i would do that, although they're pretty tough cookies.
It looks a bit like what happens to the leaves in autumn. Make sure the roots don't dry out for a while until new growth start to appear, then slowly cut back on the watering. It's a fine balance between making sure it doesn't dry out too much and getting the plants used to having less roots. You want them to keep enough energy producing foliage to be able to repair and grow new roots, but if you give too much water it might rot and die off.
Maybe you have to cut back some foliage to balance out for the lost roots. Maybe that's what it's doing itself. Drawing back moisture from the leaves to self prune... It's hard to tell. Great you care so much for these plants!

To cheer you up, i'll tell you how i've made a hundred plants out of 5 this winter. They flowered i harvested the seeds when they were dry. Left the stems,but decided to pull them out. They get really hard sticks. Some sticks just broke off others brought with them an attached bit of plant with roots. I found how to pull in a certain way, quite fierce, so that the plant tore loose taking roots along. Potted these babies up. I've made hedgerows in the productionfield. I've lost 15 i guess. In winter they have enough time to recover. The motherplant just sat there, staying intact and looks as happy as ever now.

Good luck.  

Hi Hugo,

Thank you so much for your input!!

Yes, spring is the wrong time to divide, but I was hoping he could take it. This patch was almost a metre long, and over a half metre wide. I removed just one pots worth. Maybe 18-20 cm pot.

My MIL *really* wanted some herbs like parsley and oregano, and with the pandemic, nurseries were closed for a long time, then swarmed when they opened. Her city has about 800k people. There was nothing left. So it was time to shop in my garden lol.

Its been a few weeks and it didnt seem to care too much I gave him a bit of a chop, but maybe it was too mean, especially since he has been really battered with our weather. Freezing, pelting hail, rainstorms to drown in, and then roasted alive in this crazy heat. :(

I will give him a haircut to the damaged tops and see if he perks back up.

Thanks again!

Hugo Morvan wrote:

To cheer you up, i'll tell you how i've made a hundred plants out of 5 this winter. They flowered i harvested the seeds when they were dry. Left the stems,but decided to pull them out. They get really hard sticks. Some sticks just broke off others brought with them an attached bit of plant with roots. I found how to pull in a certain way, quite fierce, so that the plant tore loose taking roots along. Potted these babies up. I've made hedgerows in the productionfield. I've lost 15 i guess. In winter they have enough time to recover. The motherplant just sat there, staying intact and looks as happy as ever now.

Good luck.  

I love this story, thank you :D

And I will keep this in mind for future propagation! I should put more oregano around this winter. ;) Its also one of the few things the furry friends willingly leave for me and the bees to enjoy.

Next time, you can give cuttings. With a little root propagator (or willow sap I've heard), you can make some plantlings to share. I got a rosemary cutting from a neighbor, and it's doing great with just spring water and sun. Most herbs can be propagated from cuttings especially the ones that spread (rhizome monsters).

Oregano is pretty invasive so the trim back was probably a good idea. Too bad it had to happen in a tougher season.

How're your MIL's plants?