On 22/6/08 15:39, in article ,
"Steve Turner" wrote:
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
In that case, I think it's a question of leaving it and hoping for the best.
The prognosis doesn't seem good though. I talked to my husband about this
last night and he agreed that the one thing eucs most particularly dislike
is being potbound. I do hope that despite all this, we are proved wrong and
yours survive. But if they don't you will know you've done your best!
: 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.
While you don't want to let yours dry right out, you don't want them to get
water logged, either. In fact, not many plants like that. So you will need
to do a bit of a balancing act there. Eucalyptus will, normally, go a long
way in their search for water, probably because of their native habitat in a
very dry country. But yours can't because their roots have been bound. OTOH
being absolutely saturated all the time isn't natural to them, either. I
suppose all that contributes to the problems of them being potbound in the
first place.
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.
You can get a soil testing kit from most garden suppliers which will tell
you what kind of soil you have and you could always dig down a bit to see
what the builders have covered, if you're worried about it! But a good way
of checking what will grow with you is to see what kind of plants the
neighbours have. And for those starting off in gardening, the Hessayon
books are a mine of information. Using the National Gardens Scheme's Yellow
Book, you can also open gardens in your area open on specified days each
year. They have good plants stalls and people only too willing to give
advice and pass on information, usually!
I found this on eucalyptus planting, too and it tells you quite a lot:
http://www.angelfire.com/bc/eucalyptus/eucgrowing.html
--
Sacha
http://www.hillhousenursery.com
South Devon
(new website online but not completed - shop to come and some mild tweaking
to do!)