Bay tree problem

sarah.b2601 · July 2022

Hi all, I’m what you’d call a total gardening newbie. I got some bay trees for the front of my house and they looked wonderful all through winter. Until I got summer and then they went shrivelled up and brown. I trimmed them back a while ago. I also went to the garden centre and the guy told me to seaweed feed them every other week so I’ve been doing that for 6 weeks and so far not seen an improvement. I got them and planted them in the pots you can see and used John Innes 2 (I think). I have no idea what I’m doing or what to do or if they’ve just had it. But they cost me £100 each only 5 months ago so I’d rather try and keep them alive!

Thanks for any help!

Sarah

Dovefromabove · July 2022

Hello @sarah.beastall and welcome to the forum

Im afraid that looks like the effects of drought ... my bay is in a bigger pot than yours and I've been giving it a couple of gallons (10 litres) of water every day for the past month ... before the hot spell it had a couple of gallons two or three times a week from March onwards ...

I give my bay tree a spray with seaweed solution two or three times a year ... but your garden centre should have advised you about your trees' watering needs ... and about an appropriate sized container. 🙄

Try scraping a little of the bark from the tree trunk ... if it's green just below the surface then the tree is still alive and you have hope ... dunk the whole pot in a big container of water so that the whole pot is submerged and leave it there for a few hours then take it out and allow it to drain (raise the pot on some bits of broken tile or something to create a little gap at the bottom to help it to drain). Although bay is a Mediterranean plant, they need plenty of water, they just need the water to drain through quicky as what they don't like is boggy roots.

If your tree begins to put on some new green shoots then Bingo! We'll give you some advise on repotting 👍

sarah.b2601 · July 2022

Hi @Dovefromabove thanks for such a speedy reply! So I went outside and scraped at the bark, it looks quite yellow and brown on the inside rather than green 😪 I so hope there’s a way back for these guys! The guy at the garden centre told me to do 1 x 10 gallon water a week! They must be parched. I’ve gone out and given them another 5 gallons each and will do the same again later and every day. I get nervous as I’ve also seen over watering them can kill them off! Thanks for your help so far!

sarah.b2601 · July 2022

Dovefromabove · July 2022

This has been an unusual year …

I’m afraid that, from that little scraping of bark in the photo, I think your bay tree is dead and won’t recover however much you water it. I’m sorry 😢

Over watering can kill them if the water doesn’t drain through quickly … but if they’re in a gritty freedraining compost and in an unglazed pot they can have plenty of water. (I use JI3 with extra horticultural grit in a ratio of approx 3:1).

Bay tree problem

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