Arbutus Unedo

My Arbutus after getting nicely established for a few years has this year started to look sickly but only on one side, it is a multi trunk and some trunks are fine the others not. Wondering if anyone might know what might be the cause? As you can see one half is perfectly healthy, the other yellowing with leaf damage.

Damaged bit





Thanks GG

 

Hi, I have one of these bushes. I don't have an answer to your problem sorry. Mine always seems to have blemishes on the leaves of some sort and never looks as good as your 'good' half. I don't know what the bush would look like if you chopped the affected half off. I would be tempted to do this in case it eventually affected the good half.

Hopefully you won't have to do that as there might be a perfectly good reason and cure that someone comes up with.

Gazania

 

I think I would cut that bit off, its never going to come back.
I have has similar damage on mine, but never worked out the cause.
Check the bark lower down on the stem, if you find damage cut it off below there.

 

Could be some sort of fungal infection.

I get something similar with my Arbutus every year but have learned to manage it.

They can take hard pruning, so I'd cut it back and then give it a good spray with Fungus Fighter or something similar.

Prevention is better than cure so giving it a spray every so often (I usually do it once a month or so).

 

Hello GG. Mine got very manky looking last year so I stripped it all the way back and it now it has healthy new growth. This are very strong resilient shrubs and are the only other shrub/tree that survive our total wipeout fires, along with the Eucalyptus, at which time they shoot again from the roots.

Perhaps this may assist you ... http://apps.rhs.org.uk/advicesearch/Profile.aspx?pid=754

 

Thanks all. Bit miffed really as if I chop the sickly bit the plant is going to look really weird and it is in a prominent place at the front of the house. Mine seems to grow quite slowly so if I hacked off the bad bit I'm supposing it will take years to grow back to 'match' the healthy bit ... argh. Will have to ponder a bit on this .

GG

 

Arbutus unedo needs Acid or Neutral soil - if you don't have that it might be stressing the plant and thus it is picking up every sniffle going around ... Sequestered Iron "tonic", or a Seaweed one, perhaps?

 

We are on clay soil here.

 

They are quite drought tolerant and don't like too much water. Mine is in a pot in multi purpose compost and grows like mad.

 

http://apps.rhs.org.uk/advicesearch/Profile.aspx?pid=754 Have a look at that, GG. The arbutus I grow here suffer from leaf-spot disease. I now spray them regularly with a variety of fungicides which does seem to help.
As your tree is otherwise so healthy, I'd chop out the affected branches...given an ericaceous feed and a good soak, you'll be amazed how quickly it'll put on new healthy growth to fill in the gap!