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"Chris Hogg" wrote in message
...

On Sat, 9 Oct 2010 08:04:14 +0100, "Will"
wrote:

?Hi, I have three hedges around my property but unfortunately being a
rather
ignorant gardener don't really know the species. I've looked up on google
and they look very similar to Escallonia although they only flower very
occasionally.
They are all around thirty years old and two of them have started to lose
their leaves and look almost dead during the winter, this has happened for
the last two or three years but they seem to recover in spring and look
healthy-ish during the summer. Does any one know why they have started
doing
this and if there is anything that can be done to help them.
many thanks
Will

Escallonia is a popular hedging shrub in SW England, less so further
north as some varieties aren't entirely hardy.

If they are escallonia (small dark green glossy leaves with serrated
edges and slightly sticky with a characteristic smell, red tubular
flowers, rusty brown bark) they may be suffering from the disease
that's afflicted may escallonias in SW England over the last few
years, where the leaves mostly wither and fall, leaving a bare shrub
with only green shoots at the tips of the stems. Sometimes they
eventually recover, but I didn't wait to see if mine would and ripped
out two escallonia hedges a couple of years ago because of it.

OTOH if they're not escallonias, they could just be either showing
their age, or suffering from the harsh winter and dry early summer we
had this year.

--

Chris

Gardening in West Cornwall overlooking the sea.
Mild, but very exposed to salt gales

E-mail: christopher[dot]hogg[at]virgin[dot]net

Hi,
Thank you both for the suggestions, it's funny this has happened 2 - 3
autumn/winters now. I think I will give them one more chance next spring
and if they don't come back to life I'll replace them.