Help! Griselinia hedge is dying.
JoannaSZ
Posts: 2
Hi All
I'm just looking some advice on whether to give my plants more time or not?
Last year, early October, I started a new hedge in my front garden, about 35-40 plants. I live in South-West coast so the winters are not too cold here Yet they can be windy. The garden is in full sun most of the day. Wind can be strong on occasion but most of the time it's not too bad.
After the winter I had to replace 2 plants as they have gone brown and dead. The rest of the plants have turned green-yellow. Yet they still had new branches and new leaves. They are still green but more yellowish than deep dark green (if you know what I mean). The new branches were darker but turned light yellowish green with time too.
If the weather turns crazy hot I water them.
In my area there are many wild griselinia so I know that it's not a matter of the climate.
I worry they are dying but can't really put my finger on it. It's my first garden ever so I've got lots to learn and most from my knowledge coms from internet or my neighbours.
Please advise if I need to feed it and if so what's the best type of plant food. Could it be that the soil is too alkaline or acidic?
Best
Jo
Posts
Which one are you growing? I will assume it's the Littoralis. Leaves can be quite yellow and young shoots can be a different colour to the mature leaves. If you don't have any other protection and it's grown on an exposed site, there could be stress especially if they are young plants.
You must make sure the soil it is free draining even if many just say all kinds of soils. This is more about the shrub when it's more mature. They never take into account young plants that are still weak and do not have much of a rain shadow to cope with massive down-pours. If your plants are starting to grow tall, watch out as this is not always good for hedging. You are trying to create bushy growth, so keep cutting them while they are low to encourage more bushiness. The more dense and less wood exposure the better the plant can cope with high winds and even hot sun.
The care for young shrubs are to keep growing conditions stable so they have a good start to put down roots. That means they need watering if there are prolonged dry spells and they suffer easily in heavy soils when young, so if you did grow as bare root, you need to mix in a bit of good compost or grit to keep soil quite free draining.
Last edited: 01 July 2017 10:53:28
Thank you. I'll need to read more about cutting and focus on that. I care about watering them regularly. But I'm not sure if the soil is good enough. Will look at it too.
Thanks.