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Old 06-09-2003, 09:02 PM
Mike Lyle
 
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Default weeping willow yellow leaves

"Janice" wrote in message ...

"justinpadams" wrote in message
...
Can anyone help me? The leaves of my weeping willow tree are turning

yellow
and falling off. The ones that haven't yet gone yellow are green, limp

and
crispy. I have had the tree for about 6 months and it is in a large

ceramic
pot on my patio. It was attacked by some insects in July and a similar
thing happened then, but I can't see any insects on it this time.

Obviously
the leaves all returned after the July attack, but I'm not sure what has
caused the problem this time. When it first started turning yellow I
noticed it was particularly dry so have given it lots of water and a feed

of
Miracle Grow but to no avail. Could it be pot-bound? It's gone downhill

so
quickly.....

Is it kilmarnock, the small type that's grafted? If so, I have one of these
and it does the same thing (as do those I see in other gardens). I'm giving
mine one last chance -- if it doesn't give me a lovely show of pussies in
spring (which it hasn't done in 3 years) then I'm digging it out and
chucking it away because it's more trouble than it's worth. It's full of
mildew, rust, aphids, ants, and the foliage is incredible ugly.


(NOTE: I have taken the liberty of remodelling this a bit to put it in
conventional bottom-posting order, which is easier to read.)

I don't think there's much future in growing a weeping willow in a
pot: they put out a vigorous root system, and in my opinion don't
really look their best till they're about twenty feet high. Even if
you hadn't said it had had a dried-out period, I'd suspect it was
starving to death; or perhaps unnatural confinement has made it
vulnerable to other problems. Just to complicate matters, these trees
can also get sick-looking if they get *too much* water: are the
drainage holes in the pot big enough?

Mike.