Newly planted hydrangea paniculata dead, dying, deceased.

Ruthmshaw

Hi, has anyone got any idea as to why a perfectly healthy hydrangea paniculata planted last Thursday in soil enriched with manure and watered well every day should have decided life was not worth living? Flowers dead, leaves shrivelled and browning. I have dug it up, put in a bucket of water and cut stems back. All other plants in that area of the garden are fine.

Purplerain

Could be the manure was too strong for it and burned the roots, but that is only a guess.

Bijdezee

It's been warm and dry in the more southerly parts, if that applies to where you live then it's probably not been able to take up enough water to replace what it's losing. 

Hydrangeas are very thirsty plants in the first place and trying to establish one this time of year is difficult. 

Lyn

The manure probably, I don’t feed anything in my garden.  Only use home made compost, not a feed but if you get your soil in good condition it will make what it needs. 

Ruthmshaw

Thanks for your comments. Since the plant is in shade and was fully hardened off i.e. it had been outside all winter, I think the manure is the culprit, as I opened a new bag to plant this particular hydrangea ( the other two are fine). I am going to pot it in potting compost, keep in the shade and hope it revives.

am.nathan

I’ve got 4 paniculatas, they are all planted in sun as I read that they like sunshine, two are doing very well and the other two just don’t seem to be growing well at all, they’re not dead, just not making any progress with growing.  Slightly worried as the comment above says they don’t like sun but I was told that the paniculata species do.  Confused. 

Fairygirl

@am.nathan - most hydrangeas will cope with a reasonable amount of sun if they're happy at their feet. Flowers may get a bit bleached in strong sun, and struggle to stay hydrated, but will cope once established.
In lots of areas, there has been very hot, dry weather, so if you're in that sort of location,  it makes it more difficult to get them growing well initially. 
The ideal location is semi  or dappled shade. 

Fire

There are wildly differing amounts of urea in some bagged up manures. I bought a load in the spring which are only now washed out enough to use. The stench was unbelievable.

Dogs, foxes, deer etc peeing directly on a new plant can cause problems too.

Fairygirl

philippa smith2 said:

Sorry everyone - altho the OP's title and post clearly states paniculata, for some unknown reason, I decided it was petiolaris - just ignore me