Help please! My viburnum doesn’t look well!

Hannahmitchell2424

Hi, when I bought my viburnum about a month ago it looked healthy with little white flowers. I planted it 2 weeks ago (in new soil that I had composted and added conditioner) and it now has brown leaves and the flowers have gone brown! I don’t know if anyone knows what has happened and if I can do anything to help it? I don’t know whether to cut it back or let it recover? Any help would be appreciated - I’m new to this! Thank you.

granma

The home made compost ......,could this have been too strong .I mean not broke down enough. If it is not ready it will burn the foliage. Have you used the right  compost  and what soil have you planted into.it is very important.to get this right..

granma

I would trim all the dried flowers off and see what happems.

Hannahmitchell2424

Hi, thanks for your reply. Sorry I probably wasn’t clear - it wasn’t homemade compost, I bought it from the garden centre. I can’t remember what it was exactly but it had John Innes in it and it was multi-purpose compost. It was very clay soil so we broke it all up and added soil conditioner. 

Borderline

The brown leaves seem to only be near the tips which would suggest that the multiple flower heads died into the growth underneath that, causing the leaves to suffer too. Excess sun or extreme cold, or even something watered from above can cause something like this.

As recommended, prune out the dead flower-heads and the top leaves. Most likely the flower-heads were too soft and not grown in natural outdoor conditions. This alone may mean it was un-able to hold its weight with even in a slight windy condition once grown in its final position. 

Hopefully, the shrub will rejuvenate after a light prune back. Make sure you water generously to help it settle in. Keep up the watering well into the warmer months.

Hannahmitchell2424

Thanks everyone for your comments, this plant is now doing very well and has plenty of new green leaves 😊