Sraines
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Joined: Wed May 27, 2015 6:17 pm

Hydrangeas have Brown Tips & Wilting - Totally Confused

I've wanted hydrangeas forever. I planted three in my yard, one in a small garden that gets a couple of hours of full sun in the evening, and the other two are along my porch and gets dappled light through out the day.

I got them at the farmers market about a month and a half ago. I planted them all without loosing the root ball. After a few weeks I realized my mistake and dug them up, loosened the roots, and replanted. I should mention that they all seemed wilted after the initial transplant. The plant in the garden has done much better than the other two near the house. Once I watered it deeply it came back the next day and never wilted after.

The other two are a different story. I watered them and they would come back, only to wilt again the next day. Now, I'm afraid I'm over watering, except my leaves aren't yellow. I have brown tips which I thought was from lack of water. But even loosening up the roots and replanting did nothing to help the wilting. I've included pictures of all 3 plants. Please help, I don't want to loose them.
2015-05-27 18.30.28.jpg
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2015-05-27 18.27.37.jpg

luis_pr
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Posts: 824
Joined: Sun Jul 05, 2009 8:31 am
Location: Hurst, TX USA Zone 7b/8a

I think you are doing "ok", have minor issues and are just not used to how these "guys" behave when you get them from the "store" to the garden. There is poorly defined term 'transplant shock' that tries to give you an idea of whyohwhy all this happens just minutes after you have planted the new shrubs. Ha! Do not despair. It is not a case of whymewhyme but something that often happens with newly planted hydrangeas.

First thing I will ask is if the farmer's market gave the name of these three shrubs varieties or if it just had a generic label that said something like "Hydrangea" and no instructions? Ohhh, this is a pet peeve of mine. The other question is where are you located? Zone? City? State? Might help with my next comment.

I will add more comments later in the day. The Italian dinner that I had last night "woke me up" so I started doing stuff on the PC and now need to get ready to go to work.

Will ck tonight. Have a good day and do not overwater!
Luis

Sraines
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Posts: 2
Joined: Wed May 27, 2015 6:17 pm

I live in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The two white plants just had a tag that said First White. The other had a tag with more information, but for the life of me I can't remember what name it gave. It was just generic instructions like, part shade, the size of the bush, etc.

I'm mostly concerned with the brown leaves. I'm just not sure if there is anything fungal going on.

luis_pr
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Posts: 824
Joined: Sun Jul 05, 2009 8:31 am
Location: Hurst, TX USA Zone 7b/8a

Picture 1 shows leaves with “dirty-looking” grayish areas on the surface of the leaves, typical of a fungal infection called Powdery Mildew. Many times, this is a result of watering the leaves (if you did not, the farmer’s market folks may have) so, I suggest you only water the soil early in the mornings. These leaves can release spores that will spread powdery mildew so make a note to throw the leaves in the trash when they dry out in the Fall. If the leaves become kind of ugly over most of the leaf surface, you can cut them off.

Brown Leaves in Pic 1 and brown sepals in Pic 2: Striking a balance between watering too much or too little is difficult. I have clay soil so I have to be careful about that. The aim should be to provide the plant with evenly moist soil. But when the plant gets periods of dry followed by wet, the leaves turn brown from the edges inwards and the blooms can also brown out. Try using a soil moist meter or the finger method to tell you when to water:

Insert a finger into the soil to a depth of 4” (not counting the mulch). Use the finger method daily, early in the mornings, for 2-3 weeks. Any time you have to water, make a note in a wall calendar. After 2-3 weeks of doing this daily, review the information on the wall calendar and notice –on average- how often you had to water (every 3 days, every 4 days, etc). Then set your sprinkler or drip system to give the plant 1 gallon of water on that same frequency (every 3 or 4 or ??? days). If the temperatures go up or down 10-15 degrees and stay there, use the finger method again to see if you need to tweak things. In the hottest part of the summer, it may be necessary to increase the amt of water to 1.5 gallons per water. Once the plant goes dormant in the Fall, you can water once every week or once every 2 weeks until Spring when the plant leafs out again. I would also recommend that on the first summer, you hand water the soil once a week because sprinklers and drip sometimes do not provide water to all the roots around the base/crown of the plant.

If the soil feels wet, see why and take any action needed. Wet soil is ok if the sprinkler just went off or if it recently rained. However, if the soil is not draining well, wet soil could end up promoting root rot. If the soil feels moist, do nothing. If the soil feels dry or almost dry, give the plant 1 gallon of water.

Wilting is common with hydrangeas. It is defense mechanism that reduces leaf exposure to the sun when the leaves loose moisture faster than the roots can absorb it. Until the plants become established, they may wilt often as summer weather gets here but in future years wilting should be reduced. If I see an extreme wilting episode, I immediately give the plant ½ gallon of water. But otherwise, I just test the soil with my fingers and give them water only if the soil feels almost dry or dry. When the soil is moist, wilted plants will recover on their own by nightfall or by the next morning. About 3-4” of mulch can help minimize these wilting episodes by making the soil stay moist longer between waterings.

Leaf spots in Pic 3: watering the leaves can also promote another leaf spots. These can look brown, purple or blackish. Known as Cercospora leaf spot, you can try to control these by separating plants from each other to improve air flow, keeping the leaves dry, keeping the soil free of plant debris and watering the soil.

Pic 4: the spots on some stems are normal of some hydrangea varieties so I would not worry about that.

Diseases Of Hydrangeas: https://www.aces.edu/pubs/docs/A/ANR-1212/ANR-1212.pdf

Minor details: this type of hydrangea produces flower buds in July-August so if for whatever reason you need to prune stems, do so after the plant blooms but before July. Choose a location that provides afternoon shade. Hydrangeas do not react to fertilizers like roses do; they are that hungry plants so a single fertilizer application is usually enough. You can use: 1/4 to 1/2" of organic compost/composted manure, 1/2 cup of cottonseed meal; a general purpose slow release chemical fertilizer with a NPK Ratio of around 10-10-10. You can also add liquid seaweed, liquid fish and-or coffee grounds during the growing season but stop at the end of June in order to make sure that these fettilizers do not keep the plant active when it is actually supposed to be going dormant in the Fall.

Luis



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