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Old 05-01-2009, 07:55 PM
 
144 posts, read 595,094 times
Reputation: 115

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I bought 9 cleyera ( medium sized evergreen shrubs) they were in 3 gallon containers about two weeks ago. It took me about a week to get them all in the ground. Unfortunately since this is my first time with shrubs and landscaping I was not diligent in watering the shrubs while they were still in the containers and so by the time I got all of them in to the ground most of the new growth on them had wilted and some were starting to dry up. I was watering them but it took me another 2-3 days after seraching the internet trying to solve the problem of why they were drooping to figure out that once they were in the ground that I needed to deep water them every day. This means at least 30 minutes of a drip typ irrigation so that the root ball would get saturated. I have quick draining soil, I am in AL zone 8 and the watering that I was initially doing was quick 1 minute enought to see standing water in the depressio around the base of the shrub. This was not enought to saturate the root ball so it continued to dry out over several more days.

Which brings me to the present, all but two plants where pretty severly dried with all new growth wilted and crispy, and the older growth had lost its shine and was brittle. I have been deep watering with a very very slow drip over several hours with the worst looking plants getting the drip all night. All but 1 seem to be recovering. Some have good bright green new growth the older leaves are back to looking shiny, but this one, basically all of the leaves on it have wilted, they are crispy, and dry and fall off in my hands. I tried to bend one of the lower branches however and it is till pliable and I started breakin the upper dried up ones off until I got to some green live bark. So the shrub seems to still be alive even though there are NO viable leaves on this one.

What do you guys/ladies think? If I just continue to deep water it will it eventually put forth new foliage? Non of the current leaves show the slightest signs of coming back to life.... or maybe there was this one on the very bottom branch that at least did not crumble in my hand when I tried to pull it gently. Should I prune it? Should I prune the dead "new" growth off of the other recoveringy shrubs?
Thanks
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Old 05-02-2009, 11:00 PM
 
Location: Mid-Atlantic
32,755 posts, read 35,956,419 times
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The answer is, you never know. That's the best that I can do. If they are in an "important" area like in a bed by the front door, you might want to plant something else in that location and move the cleyera to another location and see how they make out. They might look great next year.

I've been guilty of buying too many plants, shrubs on sale and not getting them into the ground on time or keeping them watered in a heat wave. I've lost a few, but there have been times when I thought that a plant was gone for good, dead to soil level, and it came back the next year. I'd throw the pot in the corner of the yard thinking that I'd use it, the pot, in the spring and darned if the (dead) plant or shrub wasn't growing.

You can tough it out for a few weeks and see how it's going. If they show any signs of life, you can leave them in place, but they won't reach potential this year.
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Old 05-02-2009, 11:53 PM
 
3 posts, read 11,214 times
Reputation: 14
Default Your feeder roots were fried

Your Cleyera doesn't like full sun, hope you gave it some shade. When you neglected to water the plant in the pot, it lost its most active roots, some which are only one cell thick. Until the plant can reestablish these roots, your plant will not uptake the water you give it.

Beware drowning the poor plant, roots need oxygen as much as water. That is why they don't grow in lakes! Keep your soil evenly moist and if you need to remove the dead foliage, make sure you don't cut into non-dessicated tissue or you will open up another route for water loss.

Keep the soil evenly moist and give the little guy some shade so water loss from leaves (this is how a plant cools itself) is minimized. Water in a plant is a column of molecules that stick to one another in a long column. When one molecule evaporates from a leaf, another is absorbed through the root. When either end is in trouble, you get wilting, and in advanced cases, death.
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Old 05-05-2009, 10:13 PM
 
144 posts, read 595,094 times
Reputation: 115
Default Do I need to do something about the dead leaves?

So this one plant I noticed had 3-4 green leaves on it a few days ago. These must have come up after I got the shrub in the ground. I have had the plants on a slow drip for about an hours each to deep water. They are not overwatered, It has been very hot and dry in Alabama so thats ok. I am backing off of the watering schedule now since we just started getting some rain.

I am still not sure if I should do something about all of the dead leaves though. So I can tell the woody stems are still alive but all but these 4 leaves are brown, droopy, crunchy. Should I just leave them on and the new leaf growth will push them off, or do I need to prune the dead leaves off so the new leaves can grow?
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