Have I killed my Bay Tree?

mandyp_2

I think I have over watered my Bay tree The leaves have turned yellow and are falling off. Can anyone advise on how to bring it back?

foreign_correspondent

I had a beautiful standard (lollipop shaped) bay tree till some b*gger stole it!

the bottom leaves on mie used to go yellow sometimes, have all of yours gone yellow or just some? If you are worried you have over watered it is it in a well drained container? I rarely watered mine and it was fine.

If anyone knows a source of cheap bay trees please do let me know, as I would love to replace mine, but cant afford it!

Joolzr68

Hi,

I had the same problem with my potted bay tree. Last year all the leaves went yellow so this spring I repotted it into a slightly bigger conainer, taking away as much of the old comopst as possible, and it has bounced back and has lovely fresh green leaves again. So I concluded that it must have been lacking in food, poor thing . I think the last time I repotted it was 3yrs ago so its no wonder really! The compost was exhausted.

This is the wrong time of year to repot so try giving it a good liquid feed and also try scraping the top inch of the soil away and replacing it with fresh compost to give it a boost. Spring is the best time to repot most plants.

Over watering could have contributed to the nutrients leaching out of the compost so try not to water so much in the future. Bay trees are Mediterranean plants and are more suited to a drier climate so they don't reqire lots of water.

Hope this helps.

BUBBLES_3

If the bay is waterlogged the soil will be sooggy at the bottom of the pot. Pullit out and have a look. If it is, then brush off as much soggy soil as you can and repot using John Innes number 2 compost.

Check that the newer leaves are not curling at the edges. If they are, unravel one and you might see grey aphid mights inside. These will kill the leaves they infest. Spray with a systemic inscticide.

I give all my potted trees a dose of growmore fertilizer at the start of theseason.

Davesnave

It takes quite a lot to kill a bay tree.

Although they're Mediterranean, they do like a bit of feed and water, just not too much of the latter. It may be the 'wrong' time to repot, but those of us who're busy have no time for such niceties as accurate timing, so I'd go ahead, this time making sure there are plenty of broken crocks or gravel in the bottom of the pot to keep it drained. A bit of long term feed like Osmacote is a good idea too. Then, even if you have few leaves, you should see new ones before too long.

Did ours a month or two ago and already they're looking much better.