| I have a young native dogwood (Cornus florida I believe)just outside of Washington DC that has taken a turn for the worst.
For background, I planted it about three years ago. Took care to amend the soil, mulch to about 2 inches or so leaving the base clear, feeding with organic fertilizer a couple of times a year, etc. It's planted in full sun, but I've nursed it through droughts and our hot, humid weather. This spring it finally seemed to establish itself. Nice flowering, good growth, bright green leaves.
For those of you familiar with our weather lately, it's been just awful. About a week or so ago, we went from a rainfall deficit to record rainfall amounts for 24 hours, 48 hours and one week. We had a couple of days of hot, humid weather, and then several more days of pounding storms.
I noticed that the dogwood was looking a bit stressed with curled leaves which I assumed was caused by the heat. Almost overnight, though, I would say that about 1/4 to 1/2 of the leaves have taken a turn for the worse with about half of each of the affected leaves turning brown from the tip to the middle.
Now I'm assumming this is a classic case of too much water. The ground is just completely saturated! Luckily, we seem to have about a five day break of low-80's and low humidity. Anything else I should do? I was considering snipping off the affected leaves. Should I pull back the mulch as well for a few days? Would adding any organic fertilizer or bone meal help or just add to the problems?
Luckily my Hawthorn (Crataegus viridis 'Winter King')and native wildflowers which are all in the same garden area seem to be doing well. Would be a shame to loose the Dogwood after so much TLC! |