Help needed!

MelMoo

This is my Choisya, bought last year and thrived since planting until about a month ago when it suddenly started dying! I have checked for it being pot bound but the roots have spread, it has been fed and regularly watered and the three rose bushes in the same patch are all thriving really well. Anyone know what is happening here and can I rescue it?? 

MelMoo

DampGardenMan

Frost damage? I guess The Beast hit hard over there?

Dovefromabove

Scrape some of the twigs and branches with your thumb nail ... if there's green just below the surface then the shrub is alive and it just needs some tlc and better weather.

Mind you, the leaves at the centre of the bush look worse than those on the outside, which leads me to think that it has died rather than being just damaged.

When you say you watered it regularly, you don't mean throughout the winter do you?

MelMoo

MelMoo

No it was watered over the summer last year after I planted it and did really well. I didn’t water it through the winter and haven’t at all since about September, although I did put some compost around the base in the hope it might perk up! It was fine until about a month ago then it dropped and started turning brown. 

MelMoo

Dovefromabove said:

Scrape some of the twigs and branches with your thumb nail ... if there's green just below the surface then the shrub is alive and it just needs some tlc and better weather.

Mind you, the leaves at the centre of the bush look worse than those on the outside, which leads me to think that it has died rather than being just damaged.

When you say you watered it regularly, you don't mean throughout the winter do you?

I have scraped a few of the branches in the middle and on the outer edges and all are green underneath so it is still alive. Any suggestions as to how to help it survive or is it just a case of waiting for sunshine?

Dovefromabove

Phew!   Sounds as if it's just the leaves that have succumbed to the weather then.  I would just wait ... new leaf buds will appear ... it may well look worse before it gets better as the old leaves will go brown and fall.  I would gather up any fallen leaves and burn them just in case it's some sort of fungal lurgy but if the other shrubs in the vicinity are ok then it's likely to be the weather.

Let us know how it goes 

Joyce Goldenlily

I have a variegated hebe in  a container outside my front door facing South and it looks just like your Choisya. It is frost and cold damage from the Beast from the Easts visit. Evergreen shrubs were just beginning to move when the cold snap broke . I am expecting most of my damaged leaves to drop off, it will probably look awful this year, possibly no flowers as the flowers are in the tips of the branches and may well have succumbed to the cold. Plain green leaved plants seem to have faired slightly better than variegated ones, I have a variegated phormium which is looking battered as well.