burning bush

punkydog · 08-09-2012, 12:27 PM

the leaves are starting to fell, to soon

DexterII · 08-09-2012, 01:55 PM

Is this a new plant this year, or an established one? Particularly if it is established, and if you are in a region affected by the drought-like conditions that quite a bit of the U.S. has experienced, I'm not sure that I would worry about it. I am not an expert at too many things, and certainly not this, but we have a dozen or so burning bushes, which I really enjoy by the way, and they have always seemed to me to be very durable. We have one that was about 8' tall in 1988, when we also had a hot dry summer, during which we simply were not able to provide enough water to keep everything going, and that plant wilted literally to the ground, with no hope of ever being revived, but we had a sprout there the next spring, and it is presently about 10' tall and about as wide. This year, they are holding up much better, but we still have a few that appear to be getting ready for winter much, much earlier than normal. I would suspect that yours is simply going into dormancy, or whatever, as a matter of self preservation.

sdsester · 08-11-2012, 12:35 AM

It would help to know if this is a new planting or an old one. Drought may well be to blame. You can buy a spray that will help with leaf aspiration and moisture evaporation at a nursery. I know it by the name WiltPruf but there are probably other brands.

If this is a fairly new planting one thing that can sometimes happen, depending on how you planted, is the roots can get tangled around each other or even pot bound if you have clay soil and essentially strangle the plant. Did you break the roots apart with your fingers when you planted? Not sure where you are but did you plant from a container or ball and burlap?

If the roots are all tangled up or root bound, I had great luck exploding them with a water probe and high pressure. You can buy such a thing at the nursery. It has a long, narrow cylindrical pipe with holes for water jets at the end. You work it down to the root ball and then crank the pressure way up. Sometimes you can actually hear the tangled roots pulling apart.

The other thing you might do is test the soil for at least Ph to see if you need to balance anything out. A simple test kit will set you back $20 or less. You should feed in the fall with either a fertilizer that has low nitrogen. Nitrogen is represented by the first number in the three number NPK ratio printed on fertilizers.

Obviously check leaves and bark for any sign of insects or fungus. Look at the underside of leaves and make sure to check for scale insects. Burning bushes are usually nicely resistant.