One heartbreaking moment is realizing a fellow plant of ours has a disease. Plant diseases are the number one garden killer. Thankfully, we can use modern knowledge, resources, and technology to prevent diseases in our garden, and it all starts with The Garden Disease Triangle.
The Plant Disease Triangle
The triangle consists of 3 main elements:
- Pathogen (A fungus, virus or bacteria)
- Host (An exposed plant that can get the disease)
- Environment (Conditions in the environment which make it favorable for diseases to occur)
When these three elements coexist, plant diseases are prone to occur in the garden. If we remove one of them, we can keep the garden disease free and keep our plants happy and healthy!
3 Tips To Keep Your Garden Disease-free.
Carefully Examine The Plant You Want To Buy
One of the easiest ways to infect your garden with a disease is to bring it home with you. To avoid this, take the time to study what a healthy specimen of your desired plant looks like. Use online catalogs, magazines and other resources to get familiar with the look of a healthy specimen.
Red flags can come in the form of dead spots, rotted stems, mushy dark roots, and insects. These diseases will spread to the rest of your plants in no time, and once the disease is spreading, it’s very hard to stop.

Fully Composted Waste
Different materials decompose at different rates. This means that you should be careful when placing your home collected compost on your plants! Sometimes a plant pathogen can be present in the food that we eat, and if we don’t give it enough time to decompose, it can infect our garden plants. Wait until all the waste has composted fully before using it on your garden.

Bat An Eye For Bugs
Unfortunately, bugs can cause more than just external, visual damage to our plants. Viruses and bacteria infect plants through openings on the plants body, which can result from bugs. Not only do bugs open up your plant, but they can also act as a vessel for viruses, spreading them across the plants they visit.
Look out for aphids, common virus vessels. Leafhoppers can also cause aster yellows, a chronic leaf condition that turns green leaves yellow. Insects can also pout plants under enormous stress, leaving the plant with less energy to defend itself against diseases!

Conclusion:
Garden diseases are terrible, and dealing with them can cost us many tears and many hours of our time. There are numerous ways to prevent diseases, and these three are some of the most important.