Cherry laurel leaf disease

justinpgreenaway · March 2023

Hi

can anyone identify what specific disease this is?

bédé · March 2023

Old age. I know from personal experience.

Evergreen does not mean "green forever", the leaves have a life span.

justinpgreenaway · March 2023

bédé said:

Old age. I know from personal experience.

Evergreen does not mean "green forever", the leaves have a life span.

Thanks. Quite a few of them have started to turn yellow and drop off in the last two weeks but it varies between plants. I guess this is largely down to the onset of spring. I did spray some fungus clear ultra ( a few have holes / appear eaten that I put down to shot hole) and added some fertiliser about two weeks ago and it’s started to be noticeable since then. I had thought this was the cause but assume it’s just coincidence.

bédé · March 2023

As we say: "post hoc ergo propter hoc".

Fairygirl · March 2023

Is it part of a hedge @justinpgreenaway? If so, old or new, and what does the rest look like? new hedging needs well watered until established, so, if it's new, did it have enough watering early on, and through the first 6 months or so?
Did they really require fertilising? Established hedging doesn't need food, and can be counter productive if plants are struggling. It's better if you can improve the soil regularly by mulching with any organic matter you have

It's common for them to get damaged foliage which gets dropped and replaced, so it's not necessarily a problem. If the soil's healthy, they shrug that off.
Any more info you can offer will be helpful

justinpgreenaway · March 2023

Fairygirl said:

Is it part of a hedge @justinpgreenaway? If so, old or new, and what does the rest look like? new hedging needs well watered until established, so, if it's new, did it have enough watering early on, and through the first 6 months or so?
Did they really require fertilising? Established hedging doesn't need food, and can be counter productive if plants are struggling. It's better if you can improve the soil regularly by mulching with any organic matter you have

It's common for them to get damaged foliage which gets dropped and replaced, so it's not necessarily a problem. If the soil's healthy, they shrug that off.
Any more info you can offer will be helpful

They aren’t new. There is 6 of them in a row. About 2M high each when purchased (80l pots). This will be their third season and to be fair looking at the original pictures when first planted they have grown a lot since then. I have a couple in the back garden (couple of years older) and they never shed anywhere near as many leaves as the 6 I have out front. For the 6 plants I laid an inch of wood mulch last summer and then a layer of manure in the autumn. in the last 4 weeks I have added another layer (2 inch) of wood bark/mulch ( the wood mulch from previous year had largely rotted / decomposed into the soil). It’s a bit strange as the yellowing / dropping of leaves is largely only on the one side (the side facing the sun of a south facing front garden). They generally look healthy and green (with the spring flowers coming through) but literally since a couple of weeks ago I reckon there must be 10-15 leaves per day yellowing off (guess that’s only a couple of leaves per plant per day). A couple of the plants appear to be shedding/yellowing more than the others but they are all doing it.

I reckon last year I was probably sweeping up a good 100 leaves each week during the summer ( it makes you think at that rate they would soon be bear but it must have been replacing with new growth ( hard to notice) as they did remain healthy and bushy.

I had sort of hoped with another season that it would be less dramatic than previous years (like the ones in my back garden). Easy to get to wrapped up in the multitude of reasons for why it happens leading to me applying fungus spray, mulch, fertiliser, oh and some sequestered iron). Maybe I am better off just leaving them alone to do their thing :-)

Fairygirl · March 2023

If they were such large specimens when you got them, they'd have benefited from being cut back. I know that sounds counter productive, but smaller plants are easier to establish, and it encourages them to bush out. Large plants are always more difficult. They need a lot of water - and I don't mean the odd spell of rain and the odd can of water. The prep prior to planting is important, as they benefit from a good medium to start off with. It's all about getting those roots right down so that they can cope later if there's less rain, and soil is drying out more rapidly. If you're in a drier part of the country, where weather has been consistently hot/dry over the last few years, they'd have taken a longer time to establish too. Have you ever cut them back at all?

I appreciate that people often 'buy big' to give privacy and instant cover, but it can often lead to other problems. I'll give you the link to the very, very long thread about laurel. You'll see what I mean if you read a few pages - the same advice many times about cutting back

https://forum.gardenersworld.com/discussion/656523/help-needed-please-with-laurel-hedge-issues/p1

justinpgreenaway · March 2023

Fairygirl said:

If they were such large specimens when you got them, they'd have benefited from being cut back. I know that sounds counter productive, but smaller plants are easier to establish, and it encourages them to bush out. Large plants are always more difficult. They need a lot of water - and I don't mean the odd spell of rain and the odd can of water. The prep prior to planting is important, as they benefit from a good medium to start off with. It's all about getting those roots right down so that they can cope later if there's less rain, and soil is drying out more rapidly. If you're in a drier part of the country, where weather has been consistently hot/dry over the last few years, they'd have taken a longer time to establish too. Have you ever cut them back at all?

I appreciate that people often 'buy big' to give privacy and instant cover, but it can often lead to other problems. I'll give you the link to the very, very long thread about laurel. You'll see what I mean if you read a few pages - the same advice many times about cutting back
https://forum.gardenersworld.com/discussion/656523/help-needed-please-with-laurel-hedge-issues/p1

Thanks for the link. Will take a look.

I used to have a very big conifer hedge where they are now sited. Gardener took that out and had to use a mini digger to get the trench sufficient to plant the cherries. Added some omecote preplant and a few bags of soil improver at the time (along with the old soil) to top it all back up.

The local seller advised cutting back the plants by a third. I have done some cutting back / pruning as I want them to be bushy. Albeit I probably did not cut back quite as far as they suggested (maybe a foot or two).

Watering wise I have been really good. 2 or 3 times per week during peak summer stood out their with a hose pipe on full flow for about 20 mins each time.

They were quite big / mature so sounds like they may just need that much longer to fully establish themselves, and at this point their is little more to do other than prune and water.

Fairygirl · March 2023

It sounds like the prep was good. Do you mean 20 [or at least ten to fifteen] minutes at the foot of each plant? That's the sort of watering they'd have needed in summer if newly planted, unless it's very wet area you're in.

Even when it rains, the foliage prevents water getting right in at the base where it's needed.
Probably would have been better to cut back much further, but I can understand how that's a bit nerve wracking if you haven't done it before!
Just keep doing what you're doing though. They're tough, so as long as the soil's decent they should do well. Regular additions of organic matter is always the best solution for hedging, rather than additional 'processed' food.
If you can post pix of the whole hedge, that will always help. Sometimes there's an obvious thing that we would see in a pic, but not from a description

justinpgreenaway · March 2023

Fairygirl said:

It sounds like the prep was good. Do you mean 20 [or at least ten to fifteen] minutes at the foot of each plant? That's the sort of watering they'd have needed in summer if newly planted, unless it's very wet area you're in.
Even when it rains, the foliage prevents water getting right in at the base where it's needed.
Probably would have been better to cut back much further, but I can understand how that's a bit nerve wracking if you haven't done it before!
Just keep doing what you're doing though. They're tough, so as long as the soil's decent they should do well. Regular additions of organic matter is always the best solution for hedging, rather than additional 'processed' food.
If you can post pix of the whole hedge, that will always help. Sometimes there's an obvious thing that we would see in a pic, but not from a description

Here some pics. Looks OK on one side but the other pic is from Road/south facing aspect and shows the yellowing. I’ll pick them off and within 3 or 4 days another set of yellow leaves appear.

Fairygirl · March 2023

I really can't see any problem with that at all. Perfectly fine

No evergreen is specifically 'green' 365 days a year. They all have leaves which die off and are replaced. That's normal.
The drainage/moisture retention capabilities may be slightly less favourable on the side with paving, so there's a little more yellowing, but other than that, I'd be very happy with that hedge.

Cherry laurel leaf disease

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