So I planted my dogwood about a month ago and the leaves look dry and are curling. I water it everyday...what's up....am I watering it to much? .
Maybe it is not rooting properly. Could be losing too much moisture from the leaves and unable to supply sufficient sap flow yet. Could all this water your suppling be running away from the root ball? Have you dug down to see if the roots are getting the water? Would be my first thought, it is mid summer. jim.
If leaves look partly scorched that may be dogwood anthracnose. This is common here on Pacific dogwood, Eastern dogwood and is also seen on the 'Satomi' cultivar of Kousa dogwood. Poke around in original rootball to check moisture situation there. You may be surprised. Dried out clay soil rootballs resisting re-wetting as well as coarse potting soil losing water to finer textured surrounding soil are both common. Liberally amended planting hole backfill often produces similar effects, the coarser backfill shedding water to the finer textured unmodified soil around the hole during dry conditions. During wet conditions, when such holes are dug out of a damp heavy soil the amended planting hole may behave as a sump, receiving water from the surrounding soil and collecting it beneath the new tree or shrub. Both conditions can be highly detrimental and produce failures. Daily watering of your tree is more frequent than should be required. Investigate the condition of its soil and then learn to keep it evenly moist. You should soon be able to tell how far the watering you do goes. Note that the watering requirement will vary with weather conditions. If you find you tree is sitting in a pocket of dust it may also help to mulch it if you have not already done so. If it appears to be evenly moist throughout but is drooping or rolling up anyway mulching may help with this by shading the root zone.
o.k. so I checked the soil and it's moist....I watered yesterday and 4 days before that....so I guess I'll just try watering it once a week?
dig a hole near the rootball and see whats up with the moisture penetration. Is there a chance it got dehydrated (wind burned?) in the travel home from the nursery?
I did dig about 6 in down & it was moist......but today Monday 2 full days after the last watering, it's leaves look sad. They look dry and curled even moree. Panic is setting in:(
My suggestion would be to dig your tree up and replant it. This way you can remove the burlap, have a chance to break up the root ball and see if the roots are developing. Give it a second chance before it is totally gone. This of course is if you haven't already done so. Good luck,, Jim
HI Folks: If so, midsummer now, is this really an bad time to 'move' the dogwood. Oddly enough, I have an similar problem, with an smallbeech tree, one of 3 planted an year + ago. An visit from several arborists suggested such an move. And in another forum, did read about good drainage, sandy soil, unfortuneately, I do not know how 'far down', from the surface, should one put the sandy layer to create good drainage. For I understand, it's all about the roots,comments made to me. Sort of wondered, if this applies, to this nice dogwood as well. I'm located, in mid-Ontario, and have an few low spot's, in my garden, and with quite serious amount's of 'rain', this year, torrential type, creating abundant problems. Just curious, how too, and anxious to get better drainage, to protect bushes, new tree plantings, even an modest grass area, showing an problem. Which I suspect, an similar solution. Signed + k
Best to match trees to existing site conditions. Damp ground can be drained by installing drain lines, when there is an even lower area that water can be drained into. Otherwise trees and shrubs can be planted into better draining soil placed on top of existing soil.
a good tool is a soil core sampler, it can help you investigate the soil condition to various depths with minimal impact to the plant / tree.
There are similar devices to inject water directly to the moisture resistant soil. If the plant is in the wrong conditions, it will be to the betterment of the plant to move it before further conditions arise that make it even more stressful to it. Just baby it for the following couple of weeks & it'll be very grateful.
