Dogwood leaves dried out

JoeX

Two of my seven dogwoods are looking the worse for wear recently, and I think it's the dry wind we've had.  I've tried to water them thoroughly, but it seems to have had no effect.  The damaged leaves crumble like dust.

I'm thinking that I should;

1. Trim of the damaged leaves
2. Soak even more heavily than usual.
3. Another layer of mulch, 2" deep.

I can't think of an easy way to shelter them from the wind unfortunately, maybe a temporary screen but I'll need a while to sort that out.

JoeX

Oh and now I see we have a yellow warning of wind from the Met. 

Borderline

There is nothing you can do. Sometimes they have good years and then bad years. The leaves may return in better conditions. So long as you keep them well watered if they’re still young. 

Posy

But don't drown them! The leaves crisp up because they cannot take up water fast enough to replace what they are losing in the wind but they would do so even if they were standing in a bucket. It's really hard to shelter exposed plants in a windy garden but dogwoods usually recover well.

JoeX

Okay, thanks all

Lyn

Is it dogwoods your supposed to cut back to the ground in the Spring or am I muddling it with something else? 

Posy

You can do though I just cut back old wood and some of the rest. Conditions in my garden would be too discouraging if I took the lot off. There are some finer varieties that should only be cut back very lightly indeed but I don't remember their names.

Lyn

I don't cut mine back, but they say you don’t get the rich red stems in the winter if you don’t cut them. 

JoeX

Lyn said:

Is it dogwoods your supposed to cut back to the ground in the Spring or am I muddling it with something else? 

Yes, but I took the advice here not to cut them back as this is their first spring in my garden.

Its an interesting point though, I guess I won’t have this problem next spring