Can anyone help me as to why the ends of my monkey tree are brown? Only the tips and it looks like white spit in them but no beetle is there when I have looked. The tree still looks healthy and growing but not sure if this will hurt. Thank you.
Going by the appearance of the baked looking soil and turf visible immediately around it your apparently unmulched young specimen is also not being watered, getting therefore the full impact of the current and abnormal drought conditions in Britain. So I think it is probably dyring from lack of water.
Thank you for your reply. We have only just planted the tree into the ground to see if it would help get better. Its been planted about 3 weeks but we are watering every night ( no hose ban as yet ) it still seems to grow just goes black on the ends
Poke around in the material the tree was growing in before planting to make sure it is getting moistened by the watering. (And to also check that you have not actually been keeping it too wet instead). And mulch around it with at least 4 in. of a wood product such as wood chips.
Not sure that's a good idea - the species is best adapted to mineral soils with little or no carbon content (typically on the slopes of volcanoes that have erupted relatively recently).
Slopes of volcanoes that have little resemblance to a parched lawn during a drought in Britain - specimen asked about is dying, not located in its native situation and looking healthy and normal.
True, but that still doesn't necessarily make adding organic mulch a good idea! Given that it's only been planted 3 weeks, I'd suspect the tip death actually started before it was planted (it takes a long time to show in Monkey-puzzle!).
Thats correct it did start before planting out thats why we planted it out. The tips have been black for about a year give and take, it still seems to be growing but don't know if its just being infected slowly and can't find anything similar online. I can try mulch and see if it helps though. Thank you both, just can not seem to stop it.
If it was sitting in soilless potting medium for a long time before planting, with no effective fertilization program being employed during this period it probably has a soil mineral deficiency. Rather than a pathogen or pest issue.
