My mum leaves have a spotty, blotchy disease already. How do I handle this?
Actually, this is caused by four-lined plant bugs having a banner year, piercing and sucking the chlorophyll from leaves of herbs and perennial flowers like yours. Each place they insert their mouthpart, their saliva's toxin causes tidy white, dark or translucent spots. Numerous spots coalesce and form blotches. Heavily affected leaves may turn brown and drop. Four-lined plant bugs have just one generation per year, so damage only occurs early in the season. Plants outgrow the damage, and it has no effect on flowering. The bugs are seldom seen, but nymphs (young bugs) are bright red or orange with black dots on their abdomen. Adults are usually greenish-yellow with four black strips running lengthwise down the wings. You can try neem insecticide products on nymphs, but patience is easier.
Some of my 3- to 4-inch corn seedlings went limp. At ground level, I found cuts at half the diameter and the stem was hollow about half an inch above that. My wife thinks it was a crow, and I think maybe it was a slug.
Quite possibly your corn is being attacked by cutworms. Click here for information on life cycle, symptoms and how to control them. Cutworms will attack many plants, and many parts of plants, in the vegetable garden.