Sacha wrote:

: "Steve Turner" wrote:
:
:: I hope someone can help me here.
::
:: I've inherited a couple of Eucalyptus trees from my sister
::
:: The smaller one, only about 4 foot high, seems to be dying - lots of
:: yellow and brown leaves after only 11 days in the ground. It had
:: some yellow leaves on it when it was planted, but seems to have
:: accelerated.

: Eucalyptus are trees that are particularly difficult to get going
: after they've been potbound. Normally, they have quite robust root
: systems and it is possible that yours just won't make it or that a
: high wind will topple them. All you can do is wait and see. If
: nature is watering them for you, leave them alone and only water in
: drier spells. In your situation, I think I'd take the top foot out
: of them and give the roots less work to do. It might be kill or
: cure, though, and I've never had to do it, so please don't blame me!

Thanks, Sacha. The problem with taking off the top foot is that it would
leave me with just two branches with leaves on. And both these have the
dying leaves. I think there's only one "good" branch. However they all seem
to have flowers coming right at the tips

: BTW and just for future reference to help you, it helps urglers to
: help you if you tell us where you live and what kind of soil you
: have. If you don't know the latter, looking to see what your
: neighbours or local parks grow will help you.

I live in Ilkeston, South East Derbyshire. All I know about the soil is that
it drains really well (you wouldn't believe it rained non stop yesterday,
the sparrows love taking dust baths) and about 1 foot below the surface it
is a sandy clay that breaks up quite well. My brother says that they have
clay but the garden stays quite wet after rain because it's the heavy sticky
kind.

Because the garden slopes up away from the house about 4 foot over 30 foot
we've terraced it and it looks like the clay slopes as well, which probably
helps drainage.

As for plants - well a year ago it was all couch grass, brambles, bindweed
and assorted weeds and everything grew really fast, and that's what is
either side of me. At the top end there's a hedge and the neighbour to the
east has conifers and some big tree/bush thing.

I don't know if the soil was brought in when the council housing estate was
built in the 50s or whether it's naturally local.

--
Steve