I purchased a pink dogwood tree in the spring. It has done great to date, but now the leaves appear droopy, like a plant that needs water. The nursery told us not to water, that the tree does not like a lot of water. We have had a very, very wet year, so the tree has had a lot a water. My question, is the drooping of the leaves this time of year normal? Should I water, since the past 2 weeks, we have not had any rain?
Yes, it has probably gone too long without adequate moisture. Being knewly planted it will not be rooted out well and making full use of the moisture in the soil around the original rootball. And if the original rootball is a different texture than the surrounding soil it may not be as moist. If you water and your tree does not perk up poke around carefully in the original rootball to see if it is actually dry, despite watering. Claylike soil rootballs that balled-in-burlap stock often comes with will tend to repel water once allowed to dry out.
Denise H. I'm new but do have an idea. When it was planted was the rootball opened up and any clay type substance removed, roots spread out over a planting mound, and the dirt filled in only up to where it had been in the pot. My reason for asking is that sometimes "balled & burlaped" plants have been re wraped to make them look good for sale and when opened up are a convoluted nest of bound roots. Barbara Lloyd born in Billings
We did water, and it looks a little better. Some leaves are dry and brittle like they get in late fall. I found a website that said to water once weekly in dry periods. From both of replies to my post, it sounds like I should water more often, For the 1st 10 weeks after this tree was planted, we had torrential rains and the rootball was totally under water many time. Though were were told that dogwoods don't like a lot of water, it seemed to do better when it got a lot of water. Should I water more than weekly?