Thanks shazza 3 hopefully they will grow next year as I would really like the privacy. Perhaps I should try to dig them up now and space them out further though or stagger them a bit. I agree with you that they are not fast growing.
Photinias need lots of space/air circulation around them to prevent the fungus that famously attacks them. They also, like roses, prefer to be watered at the ground rather than top sprayed, so their leaves stay dry as much as possible. As they can get some 300cm wide, I fear your 60cm spacing may be too close together and be setting them up for continual disease and failure. I had 4 planted 3' out from my last house south facing side and I placed them about 3½' apart. The outer 2 of them did very well. The inner two, closest to our air conditioner unit, always had fungus spots and dropped lots of leaves. I treated those 2 (all of them actually) with a fungicide 2 times a season and by the time we sold the house, those two were looking almost as good as the outer two.
In my new house, the former owner planted 6 Red Robin Photinias along the driveway spaced 4-5' apart. None of them had fungus when we purchased house and none have gotten fungus since (at least not yet). So it would appear adequate spacing may be crucial for these disease-prone plants. They were 15' tall when we bought the home 4 years ago but I wanted a shorter hedge so I cut them down to 1½' 2 years ago. They respond well to severe cut back. They are now 5' tall and new growth is green, spot free and appear very healthy. I never fertilize them and FYI my soil here is very alkaline. Our watering system waters them every 3 days in summer; every 5 days in winter.
Thank you PeggyTX it sounds like I will need to dig some of mine up and move them out a bit to give them space. Is now a good time to dig them up and move them?
I think Fall is the best time, but if you do it right away, perhaps they will get some new roots established before summer heat sets in. Your summers are so much milder than ours. Pretty cold out to be doing such gardening though. I have some young dry-root trees to plant down at our cabin and am dreading doing it because of the cold right now.
It's fairly mild here at the moment but we have had a lot of rain recently. I think I will try to move them now instead of waiting another year. Good luck with your tree planting!
It's fairly mild here at the moment but we have had a lot of rain recently. I think I will try to move them now instead of waiting another year. Good luck with your tree planting!
It would be the right time to move shrubs alright but it is common for many types of trees and shrubs to take a couple of years to settle in when they are planted in a new site before they start growing at a better rate.
The soil was initially very hard to dig. I don't think it had been touched in decades if ever. I dug larger holes than the pots the plants came in and added compost andmycorrhizal fungi powder that the garden centre had recommended. That area is exposed and very dry due to being in full sun all day so I keep the area well watered in the dry hot summer months and I put a thick layer of gravel around the plants to help with water loss. A good 1m or more is kept clear around the base of the shrubs (no grass). There are no other plants in that area (no underplanting) except a few daffodil bulbs. About 3m or so away is a small conifer (blue spruce) which is currently just under 1m tall and I planted that a few months ago. My soil is acidic. There are masses of flowers in the spring and lots of berries for the birds. There is always red leaves, but they do have black spots and once the leaves turn green they seem to fall off. The plants have not grown at all since they were planted. Several neighbouring properties have photinas and they don't seem to water or mulch or do anything for the plants. They do regularly trim their shrubs with hedge trimmers though which seems to have created nice thick hedging. I have never pruned my photina plants which I'm now thinking I possibly should be doing in order to get the growth?
I'm struggling to get a photo of plants and soil that doesn't include a neighbouring window or car number plate.
That planting and care you describe sounds like the best way to slow down the plants settling in the new site. Filling the hole dug for planting them with compost means the roots have enough nutrient to stay settled in the hole you dug and are slower to reach into your normal garden soil which they must do to start growing properly and anchor them in place to survive exposed conditions when they grow bigger. The very regular watering also means they are under less pressure to stretch their roots into the deeper soil which again they must do to thrive.
The plant spacing you mention in the opening post sounds like the ideal spacing for forming a hedge so I would be slow to dig up your plants as this will only slow them settling into normal growth again.
It's important to not let the hedge get wider at the top as it grows as this will shade the lower leaves and cause them to drop so if you are trimming your hedge it might be better to leave it get a bit wider lower down.
Posts
It would be the right time to move shrubs alright but it is common for many types of trees and shrubs to take a couple of years to settle in when they are planted in a new site before they start growing at a better rate.