In message , Bob Hobden
writes


"cherryredcutie" wrote
I wonder if you could give me some advice. I have 4 Cordyline Australis'
(New Zealand Cabbage Tree) in my front garden and it looks like 3 of
them are dying . They looked just fine up to last month when first the
leaves of the biggest tree started to drop and fall off. Now the biggest
tree has almost no leaves left and also the 2 smaller ones seem to rot
where the new leaves would appear in the middle of the tree and they are
also loosing a lot of the green leaves, they come of just touching them.
I took some how they looked in January and how they look now with some
close up of the rot.

What could have caused this? We had a lot of snow and frost in January
could that have been it even though they only just started to have this
problem about 3 weeks ago? Are the leaves going to grow back or are they
going to die? Is there anything I should do like pruning?

Thanks a lot in advance for the advice.

That looks like frost damage.
Unfortunately you cannot tell how much of the plant is damaged,
sometimes they get cut to the ground and resprout from the roots at
other times they sprout from halfway up the trunks. Wait and see and
cut off the damaged bits once it's obvious. One thing is certain, the
roots will be OK and will resprout.


We lost two of these during the comparative cold of the winter of
2008/9. I doubt if they are equipped to cope with our last two winters
type weather. Pity - they're attractive plants.

--
Gopher .... I know my place!