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Yellowing Portuguese Laurels!?
Stuart C
Posts: 5
Hi ..
Earlier in the year we planted what we believe are 5 Portuguese Laurels to create a small hedge area. A couple of the 5 recently flowered, but the leaves are now turning yellow with some brown burns. The other 3 look fine, are still a dark green. Can anyone advise what we should do? It would be a shame to lose the plants. I would say they are approx 1.5 m in height.
Thank you. Stuart.
0
Posts
It doesn't look very well. I'd cut it back so it doesn't have so much growth to support and hope for the best. Feeding an invalid doesn't work. These must have been large when planted if 1.5m tall now. Large plants are always more difficult to get established. Did you tease out the root ball, loosen the soil round the planting hole and keep it moist but not drowned through the summer?
In the sticks near Peterborough
Hi Both, thanks for the prompt responses .. really appreciated. They were purchased at the beginning of April at just under a metre .. they are now about 1.2 (apologies, 1.5m was a guess) . They were long and skinny when new. They have now bushed out a bit. We planted them in new top soil and kept them well watered. They have looked brilliant/really healthy all year - we have just spotted they now don't. We wondered if this was something to do with the first frost of the year. Only the two that flowered look unwell? Picture of one of the healthy plants below. Can you advise what cutting back means .. the plants are still a bit long and skinny. Thanks. Stuart.
Unfortunately not, we bought them from a Garden Centre (Preston Bisset) but via eBay. To be fair to them, it looks like they have 27K mostly happy customers .. S.
Hi Stuart, cutting back is shortening stems to stimulate thicker growth. Cut back to a healthy bud. That will also reduce wind-rock which loosens the roots and stops a pant getting established
In the sticks near Peterborough
I would cut back by at least half their current height. It sounds radical, but there's a garden saying that 'growth follows the knife'.
If you cut it right back, your hedge will grow faster and thicker than if you don't.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Stuart you say new topsoil, you aren't on a new build house are you?
Hi, thanks all for your advice. The new top soil is due to a new drive. It is probably about 10 inches deep. We broke up the soil underneath best we could before adding the top soil on top. Can I just double check. It looks like the consensus advice is to cut back the plants. Sorry, we are new to gardening and don't have the vocabulary. I have added an image of the plants below. Does cutting back mean taking say a third off the top? Only the third and forth plant from the left have yellowed. Should I cut them all to the same height.? I guess it would neater? Thanks again. S.
Hi Stuart - I don't think there's too much wrong with those. The middle one has flowered, and that has taken a little bit of effort on the part of the plant, which in turn has caused a little bit of yellowing, because it's used up it's resources. Nothing much to worry about, and all evergreens will drop leaves and have yellow ones at various times.
Cutting back a little, will restore the balance to the whole row, and give them all a chance to grow on more evenly, growing outwards as well as up. It's for aesthetic reasons more than anything that you'd do all of them equally, so just take them all back to the height of the smallest one, having cut that one back to new set of leaf joints, as nutcutlet said, to tidy it up
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
Thanks Fairygirl/All for your really helpful advice .. really appreciated. S.