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Cercis Forest Pansy
bev allen
Posts: 19
I have a cercis forest pansy that has been in my garden for 3 years, it was well established when planted cost about £70 and 1.5m tall, this year some of the leaves have turned brown curled and shrivelled up branch by branch, leaving only a few healthy looking branches, I have cut back some of the effected branches but Im worried I am going to lose the tree, its been lovely up until now, nothing else seems to be effected. Advice please.
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Cercis Canadensis can be cut hard, right back to close to the ground (aka coppicing or stooling) and that may be the best thing to do in this case as it sounds like you will have lost the natural shape because of needing to prune out the dead branches. Doing this will (hopefully) remove all diseased wood (eg if it is a fungal infection) and being 3 years old it should have a well established root system so should recover well. The time to do it is in February or early March before any leaves are showing.
if it has a fungal infection will it pass on to my other trees; acers, cornus controversa, sambucca??
should I feed it with anything?
thanks
Most fungi will only affect one species of plant so it's unlikely to affect anything else. On one of the affected branches, is there any black or brown staining of the wood when it is cut through, or beneath the bark if you peel it back? If so, that is indicative of a fungal infection. I think it's a good idea to feed it to help it fight whatever the disease is. The only other thing I can think of is that it's roots are in soil which is (or has been) too wet - any possibility of that? All of the rain we had over the winter has badly affected a lot of things which prefer free-draining soil like Cercis.