If you have started to notice that the leaves on your bushes and trees in your yard are dying long before they should, you may have a case of fire blight on your hands. Here is how you can spot fire blight and what you can do about it.

How Fire Blight Shows Up

Fire blight affects both bushes and trees. Fire blight generally first shows up and looks like a watery substance that oozes out of the infected site. The infected site can be located on the twigs, branches or trunk cankers. The oozy watery substance generally has a red to tan tint.

The oozy substance spreads the disease from the twigs to the leaves and blossoms of the affected plant. The blossoms, instead of blooming into flowers, turn brown and shrivel. Then, the twigs curl up and turn black. Sores develop on the branches of the affected trees. These sores allow the bacteria that carries fire blight to spread. Finally, the leaves in the tree shrivel up, turn brown, and look dead long before they should

How To Fight Fire Blight

The first thing you need to do is try to treat the fire blight as soon as you see it turn up. You can't technically stop fire blight, but you can control it. Trim and prune your branches on a regular basis. If you see sore spots on any branches that look oozy and like trouble, you need to trim them right away. After you trim these branches, you need to put them in your trash; not your compost. You don't want the disease to spread. Finally, after you trim the branches, you need to clean any tools you used to cut the branches with a bleach or alcohol solution to kill off any remaining bacteria.

How To Treat Plants Overwhelmed With Fire Blight

If you don't catch the fire blight early on, it can take over an entire bush or tree. When that happens, in order to protect the rest of the bushes and trees on your property, you need to have the affected tree cut down and disposed of by a professional tree removal service. Since the tree is infected, you need to hire a company that will be very careful to not allow the infected tree to come in contact with any other plants.

The best way to prevent fire blight is by trimming and pruning your trees on a regular basis. However, if any of your trees become completely infected by fire blight, you need to have them removed by a professional tree removal service. This is the best way to protect the rest of the trees and bushes on your property.