Hi last summer we put down landscape fabric and mulch around the forest pansy and it started dying back. At the nursery they thought it wasn’t verticillium wilt. The branches are still bare but it’s truing to grow from the bottom Should I cut off the 2 new branches at the bottom. Prune it all back 1/3? Cut it down and let it come up from the bottom ? I also lost a Rhodo last summer from the drought. It’s leaves are brown. Will it recover? I’m in Roberts Creek,BC Thanks
Sounds like some significant dying back in both instances. The rhodo sounds gone, if all the leaves are brown. You can check to see if there's any green within the previous year's wood (and do the same for the redbud), but it doesn't sound positive. I wouldn't cut off anything living at this point. Do you have any photos?
Redbuds are prone to blighting off when not located in their optimum situation, for a time a few years back various different people were asking about the problem over and over on another gardening etc. web site. Including those attempting them in eastern North America, where Cercis canadensis is native (most, if not all of the species in the genus are characteristic of hot summer climate regions, with the even the west coast native C. occidentalis being a Californian species).
thanks Ron, so what should I do? Cut it back? leave it? I was reading about them today that they need water in extreme heat. I suppose it needed more water. I thought it would be ok as it's been there 9 years. It's starting a couple new branches a little higher up the trunk. I've fertilized and put down alfalfa and mulch since the post. The leaves on the lowest branch look healthy.
If Canada has any kind of equivalent to the USDA Cooperative Extension Service with its regional branch office network try getting help from them in determining what the exact problem is with your particular specimen.
