Cherry Laurel Losing Leaves
Natalya15
Posts: 1
Hi
I planted 5 cherry laurel trees in March 2017. I bought the trees from a local garden centre. I am not a gardener and selected cherry laurel especially for its quality of being a tough evergreen and easy to care. They were doing well until August when one of the trees suddenly got yellow and lost all of its leaves (Pic 1). I contacted the garden centre who advised to cut new grown branches and feed roots with slow releasing fertiliser. I did, but it seems that there is no sign that tree is re-covering. Is it too soon to expect new leaves to grow? Now I have another tree on the same side (Pic 1) that has become yellow and, I guess, will lose leaves too. The soil in the garden is clay and I assume it may not drain properly, however I have lavender plants in between these trees that are growing very well. Can anyone suggest what the problem is and what to do to prevent other three trees of this damage on pic 2?
Posts
I think you have planted far too close to the edge of the barrier. I imagine their roots need space. They are quite mature shrubs and it's very tricky to expect them to take to the surroundings at that size. If you want to keep it there, then on top of the feeding your garden centre has advised, I would spike very deeply around the areas of the sick shrub, and brush in some grit or compost mixed with similar. I think your shrub is possibly suffering from establishing and it's usually compacted soil or lack of space for the roots to grow out to with Cherry Laurels. Don't worry about the loss of leaves, they can take some time to grow back.
Even if you have clay-based soil, in the first years, you need to still water when there has been no decent rain for over a week.