Joe, the two most common diseases doing what you are seeing are septoria leaf spot and blackberry rust. My guess would be the former since it is more common. My recollection is dormant lime-sulphur is the best treatment. Lime-sulphur is organic. Since you may be past dormant season you could still spray a less potent strength I expect but look up some guidelines for treatment of the disease with Google to get the details. But, before you do anything search for pictures of various blackberry leaf diseases and figure out which one you have for certain. Then search for treatments for that. If you are not sure, ask more questions here :-) Scott

Hi Rose, its quite possible too much water. Here near chicago its been warm and i notice lowest leaves are similar as your description. In my case its the water coming out of watering can and or hose hitting the lowest leaves each day sometimes resting on top of soil thats doing it for me. Martin Chicago Ebay ID - Dieseler6z92 Member- Garden Web, Figs4Fun, Friends of The Fig Society

I doubt you have a disease per se - plant diseases tend to be rather specific to individual plants rather than widespread throughout a garden. For example, rhododendron problems generally will not affect laurels, madrone diseases are not common to magnolias, etc. And ivy is virtually disease-free!! It is far more likely that there is some deficiency or other problem with the soil itself. Poor drainage, chemical contamination, excessive compaction, lack of fertility - any of these can create sufficient stress in otherwise healthy plants so that they perform poorly, display off-color foliage and/or become susceptible to insects or common fungal issues that are secondary to the primary problem. Do any of these things srike a chord? Have you had a soil test done? Anything different with the garden beginning late last year - a different type of mulch used, a spraying service, perhaps the use of weed 'n feed products on your lawn, neighbors using pesticides, construction activity that could disturb roots or alter drainage? Unfortunately, soil issues are not easily diagnosed just from photographs, although may provide some indication. You might be better served by hiring a consultant to view your garden personally and evaluate the situation. A local nursery may have a CPH on staff that could offer such a service or direct you to someone with these qualifications or you could inquire at your local extension office. Feel free to email me the photos if you like (email address on member page) and I'll give it my best shot, but based on what you describe, I truly think a personal, onsite evaluation is your best bet for getting to the root (no pun intended!) of the problem.

Orchid leaf