Charlie Pridham wrote:
In article ,
says...
In article ,
"Jeff Layman" writes:
We had (have? - read on) "Amethyst" for several years. It grew
very well and flowered brilliantly (without any pruning) for 5
years. Then, suddenly, in May 2006 its flowers started to curl up
before opening properly. When the leaves appeared, they too
started to curl up and appear dry.
Fairly typical symptoms of some sort of root-rot.
What's the drainage like? We have had some VERY wet weather.
Regards,
Nick Maclaren.
They grow on the edges of swamps/wetlands in the wild so whether our
wet winter will cause it I have no idea, but some sort of phytophora
root rotting fungus does sound likely, possibly even honey fungus.
the only other thing I can think of is if it were near a path to
which weedkiller has been applied, or near a drain that may have had
something nasty go down it (its roots having got into the drain.)
I wondered about phytopthora. I do hope it's not! No weedkiller around
that, and, as I said, other plants next to it were/are unaffected. Also no
drains around.
To answer the other query Wisteria are root grafted, ie a piece of
seedling root about 4" long is attached to a shoot from the desired
plant, there is no possibility of the root throwing its own shoots so
any new growth is the same plant you had originally. So it will not
matter how far down you look you are unlikely to see the join.
You do not have to graft Wisteria to get a good plant, they can be
done by both summer and winter cuttings but its not easy or reliable
(but better than my grafting skills) It is seedlings that are to be
avoided, they are grown in large quantities to provide root stocks
and are cheap to buy so sometimes the unwary think they are getting a
bargain (and sometimes of course they do as the resulting plants can
be good as well as bad)
Interesting. I was basing my reply about the graft on Sacha's posting. So
it looks like I still have "Amethyst", but if it stays sick I will dig it
up. Pity - it was a good plant that flowered well without pruning.
--
Jeff
(cut "thetape" to reply)