New trees appear to be dying

Kashkai

As the title states, I have some new trees that were planted in the past month during some landscaping work. However, they appear to be dying, i.e. the leaves have gone yellow or brown in some instances and are falling off the tree. One of the trees is a willow, I'm not sure what the other one is but this has only 4 or 5 leaves left on it now.

Will they recover after the "shock" of being planted or are they dead and need replacing. I still have money to handover to the landscaper so should I insist that they be replaced?

Beruthiel

Are they planted in sun or shade?
How far apart?
Did you read the instructions on planting which should have come with them?
Did you dig a big hole at the time and surround the roots with peat and food.
Have you been watering them since planting?
Have you fed them?

Sonnenblumen

Prosperous Dave wrote: »

As the title states, I have some new trees that were planted in the past month during some landscaping work. However, they appear to be dying, i.e. the leaves have gone yellow or brown in some instances and are falling off the tree. One of the trees is a willow, I'm not sure what the other one is but this has only 4 or 5 leaves left on it now.

Will they recover after the "shock" of being planted or are they dead and need replacing. I still have money to handover to the landscaper so should I insist that they be replaced?

Have you been watering them especially during the recent hot spell?

arctictree

Could be wrong here but I thought best time to plant trees was in the Autumn? Theory is that they are shutting down for the winter and will be ready to grow in the springtime?

Kashkai

Trees are half in/half out of shade depending on time of day. No I didn't water them as my garden is pretty waterlogged at the best of times and I don't think the landscaper who planted them put down any compost/feed when he planted them. As far as I can recall, he just put them in the muck that is my back garden.

So should I be watering them, bearing in mind that my garden is very wet as it is, should I take them up and put compost in at the root ball, or should I tell the landscaper to replace them if there is no hope for them?

Beruthiel

What a rubbish landscaper.

You say your garden is water logged, plants stuck in water all the time will be in as much distress and ones that lack water.

First off, I would never, ever put anything into the ground without a good amount of peat and some food.
Clay is normally too hard and difficult for roots to take hold in and the peat makes life much easier for a plant to grow.
All plants need time to settle into the ground. Watering during this period is very important.
However, if your garden is badly water logged, this wouldn't be needed. In fact, do you think it needs to have some drainage put in?
There is not much point doing anything with the tree until you have determined what the problem is in the first place.
This will require you giving them a quick check every day until you see what could be the problem.

the leaves have gone yellow or brown in some instances and are falling off the tree

Normally, I would consider this to mean the plant is not getting enough water.

Your water logged garden comment confuses me as a result.

arctictree
The best time to plant anything is spring or autumn.
However, if you know what you are doing, you can plant something when ever you wish. (Except winter of course.)

magicbastarder

surely winter is the best time to plant bare root trees?

Sonnenblumen

You can plant practically most things at any time of course (bar very low temps/hard freezing). The key point being that specific ground preparation is required depending on plant type and time of year. Bare root material is only available Oct-Mar again weather permitting. Container grown available all year.

Most common causes of plant failure is inadequate or no ground preparation, poor positioning and poor aftercare.

The Sweeper

A point re planting in clay soil - e.g. sticky, heavy clay that can become hydrophobic when too dry and holds a lot of water when wet.

The directions on a plant usually say 'dig hole twice the size of root ball before planting.' Most people just about dig that much, put the plant in the hole and backfill with a compost. The problem with clay soil is your plant can die of wet feet in that environment - water takes the path of least resistance. As the rain runs across your clay soil, it discovers this patch of lovely, permeable compost and so it sinks in. Anyone with heavy clay knows that if you dig a hole and fill it with water it can take two days to drain away - so your plant and its compost are saturated with water, that won't drain away, and even days after the last rain it's still soaking wet around the root ball of the plant.

This is how I plant out - successfully, so far - in my heavy clay soil.

Soak whatever you're going to plant by immersing the pot in a bucket of water for half an hour before planting. You don't have to have it floating and swimming so half the soil washes away, but you want to get it good and wet.

Dig a large, deep hole - bigger than the 'twice the size of the root ball'. Heap the clay you dig out of the hole on one side. Try to slope the sides of the hole inwards, so they're ragged as opposed to creating a perfect, round bowl in the clay.

Mix some of the clay you've put to one side with a handful of gypsum and line the bottom of the hole with it. I like to break it up a lot and thoroughly mix the gypsum through, so it's more like gravel when I line the hole. I do NOT put any water in the hole at this point - it's good when planting into something like rich or sandy loam to water the hole you've dug before planting and backfilling, but with clay it can just make it waterlogged and more difficult to deal with.

I like to use compost because I don't add extra plant food if I use a good one - I'll just use seaweed based soil conditioners to keep the plants in good order while they use the compost for food.

Taking a good compost that's suitable for your plant, make a 'backfill' mixture - 80% clay from the hole you dug, 20% good compost, and a handful of gypsum through the lot to help break the clay down. With this mixture, back fill the hole until you're at the point where your plant, sat in the hole, will sit flush with ground level (measure, if you're not sure - take your plant, in its pot, and sit in the hole a few times until it looks like it's going to sit with the earth level in the pot flush with ground level).

Take the plant out of the pot and sit it in the hole, making sure it's upright. Backfill with your 80/20 clay and compost with gypsum mixture, and stamp down the earth around the plant firmly. Water it in well, without drowning it.

The advantage I would have over you guys is my clay is dry as concrete, whereas yours could be soaked and sticky, but it's the same premise - mix through gypsum and work it thoroughly through the clay, but then mix through a little compost. (And it's also a disadvantage, because I have to dig holes for my plants with a mattock and a pickaxe instead of a shovel.)

As a finish, I like to spread some compost over the surface of the soil around the plant, so as it breaks down it'll feed it over time, and because I have truly crap soil and everything helps to improve it. Then I mulch over that with pea straw.

If I was going to try creating an entire bed for vegetables, for instance, I would mix far more organic matter through the clay to improve it, but when planting single plants, unless you're going to re-dig the entire area, you need to ensure you're not creating a little fishbowl for the roots to drown in.

OP, if your garden was already very waterlogged, the landscaper should have looked at putting in some drainage. If it's just waterlogged because it's been raining heavily, but there will be times when it dries out, then proper soil preparation should be enough to keep your plants alive when they're planted out.

secman

Mines a JD,


Thanks very much for that information, have been thinking along those lines myself over the last few weeks, having lost 5/ 6 shrubss & trees which have effectively drowned in my heavy clay soil in good oul co wexford home of the macamore clay !. I have been doing exactly what you have preached not to do ie digging a hole , filling it with compost for the new shrub, the compost acting like a sponge, drawing in water all around it and drowning the plant ! Only last weekend having dug up 2 more dead ones, I mentioned this to my other half that the compost was acting like a sponge. I will try your suggestion, one Q what is gypsum ?


Thanks

Secman

The Sweeper

Gypsum is basically a calcium sulfate that reacts with clay, causing it to become more friable - the clay breaks down more easily, gets less sticky, drains better. You can use quite a lot of it over a small area - like up to 2kgs over a square metre, and work it in well. It shouldn't alter the PH of your soil. It can be reapplied annually - or more often - to improve soil quality over seasons. It's usually sold - over here anyway - in bags of 10kg and up to 25kgs, and looks like a fine, pale gold powder.

I'd say you should be able to get it at a garden centre or nursery that has a reasonable range of potting soils and garden 'alchemy' products e.g. somewhere that stocks bags of lime, boxes of epsom salts, chelated iron and so on.

Kashkai

Landscaper finally put in the land drians that we had agreed (but that he had tried to avoid doing) and they appear to be working. The tree is looking very miserable at the moment and I think I'll dig it up and re plant it as per the advice above. Thanks again.

Sonnenblumen

I would imagine you are wasting your time, chances are those trees have been neglected and are probably in final stages of dying.

If only trees (and plants) could speak!