Atheen..LOOK AT YOUR TREES RESPONDING!! I am so happy for you! You know, you would be surprised at what vinegar and fresh rains can do for my trees.. I am getting HUGE amounts of green growth and the vivid color of the trees is just exciting. I had a huge downpour last night and this morning, all my trees looks so beautiful lit up by the sunshine.... Hobby, if you water is reading that low, then vinegar is not needed although if they were my trees, I would give a heck of a lot more fertilizer...I would also scratch in some slow release and start spraying down your trees with Fish Emulsion diluted in water. I use a spray bottle end attachment at the end of my hose. Bmelz, good question...I don't know if it does the same. I would be curious to know if anyone else knows.

Or at the very least, compost on the soil and leaves on the compost. That's what I do, although I often blend them with some grass clippings so they do compost more during the winter than leaves alone. Basically I put the most composted material in contact with the soil and the least decomposed on the top, and if there are intermediates like half finished compost, that goes in between. You want the compost nutrients and humus incorporated into the soil and not washed off or whatever. And the uncomposted stuff forms a good mulch to insulate the surface and allow the worms to work later into the fall. Having said that, I will admit I've never tilled in leaves, only compost and sometimes (early on when I was desperate) I tilled in half done compost. Now that my soil is really nice, I do the layering described above. Just my two cents.

These days, animal manures can contain traces of persistent herbicides that can potentially affect your plants. These specific herbicides are sometimes used on hay and feed crops fed to animals. The stomachs of some animals do a better job of breaking down these chems than other animals (cows have 4 stomachs, for example, horses... one.) Also, how the manure was handled afterwards - in the composting process - can also affect how quickly and efficiently these chems breakdown. Veggie gardens have the concerns of salmonella and other illnesses which can affect humans. However, as long as you aren't rolling around in it, and wash your hands after working around manures that may not have been composted properly, this isn't really a concern with trees and hedges (just be aware that young children aren't always as cautious.) Leaf composts are also easily made at home. Other types of composts must be bought, or at least, transported from large facilities - and this has costs. Other than that, composts from some sources can have 'better' nutrient profiles, but this is often so slight it's not really too much of a concern unless the composting process was very well manged - and even then, the differences aren't enough to really be concerned about, especially for hedges and trees. Tox typed faster that me... what he said lol.

It looks like the larger of the leaves is mostly mechanical injury. You can see witness marks where the large leaf was folded, which caused the compromised veins which limited water/ nutrient flow leading to the necrotic spots, though over-watering can't be ruled out entirely as the cause of some of the other lesions, especially in the smaller leaf. It's unlikely it's a bacterial infection. Bacterial infections are usually moist and limited in their spread by venation (veins). The image of the smaller leaf doesn't show clearly if the lesion is bounded by venation, but bacterial infections aren't that common. I read up a bit and think it could be bacteria or fungal infection. So far I’ve sprayed it with copper fungicide spray and watered with a root support treatment. And cut off most of the leaves with the spots. I don't know what's meant by a root support treatment. But the efforts were likely unnecessary or aimed in the wrong direction. Leaf loss could easily be due to the reduction in the light load as we approach the dark days of winter, or could have been caused by over-watering. Watering is an important skill. If you're following the oft repeated advice to water when the top inch or two of the soil is dry, then it's highly probable you're over-watering .... unless your pot is less than 5" deep. More important is what moisture levels are deep in the pot, at the bottom. To monitor moisture levels there, a "tell" is very useful and much more informative than a digital device (finger) or a cheap water meter. The idea is to insert the "tell" and read what the tip tells you moisture levels are at the pots bottom. See more below. If you can water correctly (so you're flushing the soil when you water) and effectively control moisture levels, and are fertilizing appropriately, the 2 remaining issues would be light levels and temperature. The plant needs lots of light and, ideally, wants to be grown in the 68-78* range. If you wonder about fertilizing, please ask. It's very important that containerized plants are provided with appropriate nutrition, as the nutrients are essential for keeping the plant's systems orderly and they serve as the building blocks from which the plant creates its living parts. You might find this piece I wrote about Long Term Care of Ficus in Containers helpful. Using a 'tell' Over-watering saps vitality and is one of the most common plant assassins, so learning to avoid it is worth the small effort. Plants make and store their own energy source – photosynthate - (sugar/glucose). Functioning roots need energy to drive their metabolic processes, and in order to get it, they use oxygen to burn (oxidize) their food. From this, we can see that terrestrial plants need plenty of air (oxygen) in the soil to drive root function. Many off-the-shelf soils hold too much water and not enough air to support the kind of root health most growers would like to see; and, a healthy root system is a prerequisite to a healthy plant. Watering in small sips leads to avoid over-watering leads to a residual build-up of dissolved solids (salts) in the soil from tapwater and fertilizer solutions, which limits a plant's ability to absorb water – so watering in sips simply moves us to the other horn of a dilemma. It creates another problem that requires resolution. Better, would be to simply adopt a soil that drains well enough to allow watering to beyond the saturation point, so we're flushing the soil of accumulating dissolved solids whenever we water; this, w/o the plant being forced to pay a tax in the form of reduced vitality, due to prolong periods of soil saturation. Sometimes, though, that's not a course we can immediately steer, which makes controlling how often we water a very important factor. In many cases, we can judge whether or not a planting needs watering by hefting the pot. This is especially true if the pot is made from light material, like plastic, but doesn't work (as) well when the pot is made from heavier material, like clay, or when the size/weight of the pot precludes grabbing it with one hand to judge its weight and gauge the need for water. Fingers stuck an inch or two into the soil work ok for shallow pots, but not for deep pots. Deep pots might have 3 or more inches of soil that feels totally dry, while the lower several inches of the soil is 100% saturated. Obviously, the lack of oxygen in the root zone situation can wreak havoc with root health and cause the loss of a very notable measure of your plant's potential. Inexpensive watering meters don't even measure moisture levels, they measure electrical conductivity. Clean the tip and insert it into a cup of distilled water and witness the fact it reads 'DRY'. One of the most reliable methods of checking a planting's need for water is using a 'tell'. You can use a bamboo skewer in a pinch, but a wooden dowel rod of about 5/16” (75-85mm) would work better. They usually come 48” (120cm) long and can usually be cut in half and serve as a pair. Sharpen all 4 ends in a pencil sharpener and slightly blunt the tip so it's about the diameter of the head on a straight pin. Push the wooden tell deep into the soil. Don't worry, it won't harm the root system. If the plant is quite root-bound, you might need to try several places until you find one where you can push it all the way to the pot's bottom. Leave it a few seconds, then withdraw it and inspect the tip for moisture. For most plantings, withhold water until the tell comes out dry or nearly so. If you see signs of wilting, adjust the interval between waterings so drought stress isn't a recurring issue. Questions?