My cherry laurel are wilting, some yellow and crispy, help!

blue_monkey_2

We have 14 cherry Laurels that were put in last November and 2 or 3 of them are starting to develop yellow leaves and they are starting to go crispy now. Some of the leaves on all of them are going brown and dry on the edges too.

My neighbour turned his garden over next to them so it might be a co-incidence - but a few days after they all started wilting so I am wondering if he got the roots. They are planted to make a new hedge between us.

I wondered what was best to do. Should I prune them and cut the crispy bits and take the dying leaves off? They are about 4.5 ft now and we was putting a 4ft hedge in so I could lop off half a foot (should I do this to all the bushes, just the top and not the width). Because they do not have the width I have not trimmed them at all yet. I understand I should do this with secateurs. Is it better I lop off the bits I do not want to the bush gets the nutrients?

After we put them in it rained a lot so they did not get watered, however the gardener put some compost on top so they would get nutrients over the winter.

They were fine until the spring came and the rain stopped and now they seem to be wilting and have dry leaves. I went out and watered them last week but while it made some difference it did not make a huge amount of difference. Does this mean I should be watering them more?

They do have new buds growing from the bottom so it does look like they are growing slowly.

I am useless with plants, I kind of assumed they would look after themselves with them being so hardy but clearly I was wrong. Thanks for any advice you can give me to save them. Thank you.

serena

I would take a guess at drought. Not sure what it's like where you are, but in Kent we've had little rain until a couple of days ago, and on occasions, wind as well as strong sun, which will dry out the leaves dramatically.

Dig a small hole with a trowel beside the hedge, and check out how dry the soil is six inches down. I would also guess that they were container grown, and they do take a while to grow out into the surroundig soil. The original root ball can be very difficult to get wet again if it has completely dried out.

When watering, you need far more water than you might think.Plants need an inch a week - which is 4 1/2 gallons, or two to three watering cans, per square yard.

I'd recommend leaky hose or a seep hose. Alternatively, bury a short length of pipe, or a cut off plastic bottle in between the plants, and water into that. Then, the water will not run off or evaporate but will be nearer the roots.

I'd trim off the scorched and dead leaves.

Laurel grows extremely fast once established.

(My neighbour has a row on my boundary - hate the things myself! The roots are huge, about two inches in diameter, and groing yards across my garden. Then they seed everywhere...He has said he'd take them out.)

blue_monkey_2

Thank you so much for replying, I will give that a try. I have some old hose so I'll have a go at plugging one end and putting some holes along the length and leave the hose on so each plants gets watered a lot. We have had the same weather from you, not far from you tbh, the other side of the bridge. I thought that the roots might be waterlogged but now see that this is not the case.

It is OK to trim is it? Some of them are 5ft and we are not growing it that high so will it be OK to trim the height off too while it is establishing? I'll get rid of the leaves that have started to go brown, could these be because of the sun and wind then?

It is not going to rain tomorrow so I'll get that done then.

It replaced a privet hedge that was brown for most of the year and had been cut badly before we got here so was in terrible shape so the neighbour was happy with us replacing it.

blue_monkey_2

I just wanted to update and tell you I bought a soaker hose for my laurels and they are looking much, much healthier. I am convinced that someone has either sprayed the ones that have died, or the neighbour dug under them and turned up the roots - because they are just in a certain patch that he was sorting his garden.

However, dead leaves aside, they are all perked right up again and they are bushing out and are now growing quite fast. The dead looking ones are defintely growing at the bottom so I know they are OK, just they are going to have to grow more than the others.

Thank you ever so much for the advice.