Euonymus disease/damage

Question

I have 4 what I believe are “golden” euonymous bushes that we planted last spring (16′). They grew to about 2.5′ to 3′ tall and about 1.5′ 2′ wide last year. Over the winter they dropped their leaves which we thought was a common trait but they grew back very slow or not at all. 2 of the 4 are growing back and not to worried about but I did cut back all the top now dead growth from last year to basically start them over. The other 2 are barely hanging on and today I noticed 1 of them had a large amount of good growth just recently turn yellow to light brown and started dropping leaves again. Attached is a picture of a leaf i picked off, notice it appears the burn/disease on the leaf starts from the tips/outside and grows inward, burned(grey) at the edge. Anyone have any insight on what may be going on here and how I can fix this?

First picture is a single leaf starting to burn/die off.
Second is the plant i took it from
Third is one of the 2 plants growing back very well

Answer 1

Some euonymus species are afflicted by scab, from the fungus Sphaceloma or Elsinoe euonymi-japonici. Scab can disfigure the euonymus by causing small gray spots encircled by orange margins to grow on leaves and stems. If left alone, the spots grow larger, sometimes merging together. A copper-based fungicide like that for powdery mildew and leaf spot can prevent and control scab.