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Gardening in Canada

dogwood do the leaves turn yellow?

17 years ago

I moved a young cornus alba "elegantissima" early in the spring to what I thought would be a happier location: one where it would get morning sun rather than the blazing afternoon sun it had before. It seemed to settle in nicely. However, lately its leaves turn yellow, the edges turn brown, and they eventually fall off. Since it's near the front entrance to the house its scraggly appearance really bothers me. I've tried to make sure it gets plenty of water. None of the other shrubs near itÂrhodos and hydrangeaÂare suffering, so I'm wondering what's up or if it's just in the nature of this shrub.

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Comments (6)

ianna
17 years ago
Was it well established before transplanting? The brown edging of the leaves indicate that it's receiving inadequate water which is most likely caused by root damage. In other words, transplant shock. Keep it well watered (but not overwatered) throughout the rest of the season. Do not fertilize at all which can cause more damage. It should be fully recovered by next season.

Ianna
luv2garden_roses
16 years ago
I noticed your posting was dated Jun 19th. What is the condition of the dogwood now? I, too, have a pink dogwood that has wilted, yellow leaves. It seems like it happened overnight. Will the tree recover? It was a new planting this fall; there is another dogwood in the same location that is doing fine.
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With a dogwood, unfortunately, yes. Especially if they are getting a lot of sun. They just do not root out of their potting mix/soil ball very fast at all. I killed 3 dogwoods last year. The first (Cherokee Princess) died from the extremely wet spring and got some leaf disease (athracnacose?) and never made it to the dry part of summer. I planted it the previous fall so it had been in the ground about 7-8 months. I pulled it out of the hole after it died and new roots were not even .5" longer than when I planted it! The other two Kousa dogwoods died during the drought as I just could not get the ground soaked adequately throughout their rootzone. They were 2' bareroots I planted in the spring and I have noticed at my house at least, bareroots of all species require more thorough watering the first year and less help the second year and beyond compared with potted plants the don't need quite as much complete watering the first year but still need a little help the second generally speaking. All this to say planting technique and method, followed by how you mulched and watered it all play a large role is stress you might be currently be seeing. I bought a closeout Cherokee Princess for $10 end of last summer and put it in shade until it went dormant in fall. I then washed all the potting mix off the roots and bareroot planted it. It doing very well so far and seems to be my best bet for success with C. florida. John
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How long has the tree been in the pot? If for several years, the roots may have grown to the extent that they fill the pot, and there is very little soil left, thus little to hold the water. If you can, with help, remove the tree from the pot and look, you may well find that the root ball is a solid mass of roots, with little potting soil to be seen. Your best bet for now may be just to water twice a day until the leaves fall off and the weather cools off. Try it and see if it helps, if you can't get it out of the pot without major effort. This is not the best time of year to do it - after leaf fall is better - but root-pruning it would help, and let you keep it in the same pot. If you have a larger pot, then you could re-pot it now, but it would possibly be better to do a little root-pruning when you do that also, depending on how many roots there are and how they have grown, so waiting - and watering more - might be the best option.
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I bought it already grown 4ft tall. I loosed the ball sat it the hole we dug out in the earth soil then put Miracle Grow Garden soil in it around it. Then I read some where to put mulch around it but not touching the tree branch itself and water in the evening. Not it the first part of the day when sun is on it directly. Because it could scorch it and sun just dries up the water. I took off all the dead leaves and now its starting to grow new leaves. So far its doing good. With it raining during the day has really helped it also. Thanks for responding.
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What did you use for the Aphids? Leaves turn yellow, exhibit chlorosis, for many reasons and sometimes people spray inappropriate things on plants to eliminate Aphids that cause the plants leaves to die, which yours are doing. If something was sprayed on those leaves that restricted that leafs ability to breath or photosynthesize the plant will cut off nutrient flow to that leaf and it will die.
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ianna
16 years ago
Dear Luv,

Your situation is rather different from Jannabeen's situation. Janna's tree was likely suffering from transplant shock. Your tree was already established when it suddenly displayed these symptoms. If the tree was planted in an ideal location, if it was well watered, suffered no injuries from lawnmowering nor from fertilizing (root burns) - then you'd have to investigate whether the cause could be fungal or a pest. Flowering dogwoods are particularly susceptible to a hosts of diseases and pests and any of these things could kill your tree. Here's a link to an informative website. It provides both description of the diseases, symptoms and treatment. Having said all these, I am not experienced with dogwoods but I am considering adding a pagoda dogwood to my backyard landscaping. Good luck on your tree.

http://hgic.clemson.edu/factsheets/HGIC1010.htm

Ianna
jannabeen
Original Author
16 years ago
The dogwood recovered--it looked pretty awful for a while. Here's a picture of it now:

{{gwi:532443}}

It does need a lot of water, and its leaves get scorched easily.
louise corcoran
7 years ago
I have just been given a cornus alba elegantissima as a house warming gift, new garden/new gardener! Planted it in a sunny sheltered spot with a clay soil and watered it in well, my partner gave the front garden a water a week later with a diluted plant food (phostrogen) that was 2 days ago and it is now majorly wilting. In fact a few of the garden plants seem to be wilting but I put it own to me over watering them (iris, sedum, calla all a little on the droopy side) which I haven't done with the shrubs. How can I recover the dogwood? I now realise my mistake with the other plants as I read iris and sedum don't like to much watering....many thanks!
ianna
7 years ago
These plants are hard to kill off. Just leave them be but do give them a hardpruning every now and then.

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