What are these plants lacking?

These shrubs appear to be growing healthily - but they also drop leaves frequently after they go a pale green, then yellow then brown before dropping off.

The shrubs were planted with a fish/bone-meal, compost and grit mix and are fed with a sequestered iron mix occasionally.

 

What are they? Laurels?
They look like evergreens. Evergreens lose leaves all year round. The leaves typically going yellow then brown before falling off after the plant has removed anything useful from them. If they are growing well and you are getting fresh leaves forming I wouldn't worry.

 

Thanks Nigel.

Yes they are Laurels - bought/planted last autumn.

What concerned me was two things -
- one (of six) seemed to die over the winter, but having lost all branches/leaves appears to have started regrowing last month.

- a neighbour down the lane has the same shrubs and theirs are a lot darker in colour and don't seem to be losing any leaves.

However not being a shrub expert when this sort of thing happens it can be a cause for concern.

 

Young growth is often lighter in colour and will darken as it matures. if the "dead" one is growing it will catch the others up. Probably just suffered some root damage when planted.

 

As they are recently planted they will need to be kept well watered throughout the growing season which means until the end of the summer whenever it is dry. If you are not doing this, it could be the problem. April and May can be stressful months for shrubs in their first year if there is little rain.

 

They were planted at the end of sept 2015, and it has been quite wet here recently. However we have been keeping them watered in recent weeks.

That's what we are hoping - time will tell eh?

 

I saw some of these planted at a new housing development last winter.
Most now are very yellow, some are leafless.

They actually needed watering last winter, but I'm guessing they weren't.

Also guessing pot grown, once that rootball dries out, and it will even in winter being evergreen, it's very difficult to re wet.

 

They were pot grown - but I'm not sure that the rootball will have dried out as the ground where we are was very wet most of the winter due to the amount of rain we had

- but obviously we won't be able to tell now if that was the case - and just hope they continue to sprout new leaves and grow healthily without losing too leaves many along the way.

 

Handy hint - after planting a new hedge, run a length of irrigation hose in between the base of each plant and connect the irrigation hose to a normal hose pipe. Use a double hose connector on your outside tap - all you have to do then is turn on the tap to water the hedge.

I've done this for the front garden hedge (which is cherry laurel and has yellow leaves like yours) - the first year they need to be constantly monitored. Once they have established you can ease off the watering.