Recently planted lime trees - advice pls

We planted 12 foot lime trees March 2009 which came out in leaf during the summer.

This year, although buds have appeared on most of the trees a lot of the trees have not come out in leaf. Some have come out in leaf close to the trunk and others have flourished.

We have clay based ground conditions however I shored along each one of the trees to aid drainage and irrigated during the dry monthes.

I have also added fertiliser which has helped some of the trees that DID NOT come out in leaf - they have sprouted leaves on the trunk though.

I hope I have described the problem and also hope that someone can offer some advice.

Thanks in advance.

 

Good evening Blackersmill and welcome to the site. I assume you are talking about Tilia cordata, the Small Leaved Lime? What you have to remember is, you planted some large plants and the first thing ANY plant has to do is make roots. The bigger the plant, the longer it takes to establish the root system. I wouldn`t panic yet, give them another season.:gnthb: Don`t worry too much about the soil, these are hardy trees which will grow virtually anywhere.:thumb:

 

daitheplant - thank you for taking the time to reply. Yes, the small leaf lime tree, they look pityful at the minute and I'm sure we have lost a few but I will take your advice, give them some more fertilser in a month or two and leave them to see how they progress next season.

 

I think if they were my trees I would be very worried that after 2 growing seasons they have not taken off.
So just a couple of suggestions.

Scrape away the soil round the trunk. You should hit roots. If they have been planted too deep that can kill the tree. If need be remove some of the soil.

Do you have grass growing right up to the tree.? It competes too much and can affect the growth of a sapling tree. So remove all turf/ weed etc in a clear circle round the trunk.

Then when you have a clear circle give your tree a good mulch. Composted bark is excellent for this. Do not pile it up like a volcano. Make sure you keep a clear space round the trunk. If the mulch is too near the tree it can also kill it. Do it like a donut.. with a hole in the middle!

I would recommend that you add fertilizer in the spring when the trees are actively growing. Put down now most will be leached away in the winter rains.

Do have a look at this links...

http://blogs.phillynews.com/inquirer/hortisexual/2007/08/too_mulch_of_a_good_thing_1.html

http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://treeserviceandremoval.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/tree_mulch.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.treeserviceandremoval.com/&usg=__r0eYWBNmTneLEn8RH1p8-rb_oUQ=&h=900&w=800&sz=204&hl=en&start=0&zoom=1&tbnid=Twv_Exk7iqYihM:&tbnh=122&tbnw=106&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dtree%2Bmulching%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG%26rls%3Dp,com.microsoft:en-gb:IE-SearchBox%26rlz%3D1I7SUNA_en-GB%26biw%3D1242%26bih%3D529%26tbs%3Disch:1&um=1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=114&vpy=47&dur=172&hovh=238&hovw=212&tx=106&ty=130&ei=uUeaTPCiKsjKjAfxuZAN&oei=sUeaTMDBMoeTswaq3N2GBA&esq=4&page=1&ndsp=21&ved=1t:429,r:0,s:0

 

thank you Silver, there isn't much soil above the root and the trees were planted with a 3 - 4 ft circle of much around the tree - not piled up and not touching the bark - like a doughnut as you rightly point out.

Most of the mulch has been stripped away due to cutting the grass around the trees so I have to replace. This has allowed a lot of scutch grass and weeds to populate the area so I have stripped that away and plan to fill back in with mulch, compost / wood chip.

I have seen some small shoots of leaves from the main trunk as soon as I added fertliser earlier in the year, I'll perhaps give them another shot this weekend. Thanks.

 

Don't think I know the answer, but my take is that they are not happy:

Unless the tress came from somewhere that has murdered the roots they ought to have transplanted OK and grown on. I planted some Lime trees for a pleached hedge in December 2008 and whilst they have not romped away they have made growth in both years since. I would say they were 10' tall at least when planted, but they were not old enough to have "formed heads" so yours may be larger.

We planted ours with a piece of 2" perforated drainage in a ring around the rootball with one end bent up to the surface. We only irrigate through this so that the water is around / under the roots rather than on top of them as surface watering tends to encourage the roots upwards, or is not sufficient to soak down in the heat of summer. Waterring should be not-too-frequent (perhaps twice a week during a drought, once a week in warm Summer and probably nothing at any other time) but they should have a good drink each time - I would guess that we give each plant 20-30L at each watering.

My thought is that the roots were too fiercly pruned before you got them (if they came from a reputable nursery I very much doubt that is be the case - definitely worth asking the Nursery what they think / suggest)

If that's not the case then:

Perhaps they are in planting holes that were not large enough, or the bottom of the planting hole was not loosened up enough to let the water drain away and the roots grow through. That would be particularly relevant if this is a new site on what was a ploughed field - they can often have a plough-pan 12" = 18" down which can be as hard as concrete - so-to-speak. Also relevant on clay as the outside & bottom of the planting hole can act like an impermeable wall! to water. (Simple test, dig a hole, pour in buckets of water to fill it up, if it takes more than a couple of minutes to drain away then the soil does not drain very well)

Other possibility is that the feeding has been too rich and the roots have got "burnt". What sort of feed, and what frequency, have you been giving?

 

P.S. Just to clarify about planting depth: the plants should have been planted NO DEEPER than the original soil level / mark on the plants. Sounds like that was the case, so just wanted to double check that.

 

thanks K, the ground around is clay ok, so we dug out really large holes and loosened the ground below. We have ongoing trouble with different trees and even though we have done all we should have going by the suggestions - apart from the perforated pipe around the base looped up to the ground level, we can't really do much more.

I just wanted to make sure we had done all we can and that there wasn't a trick that I'd missed.

I'll perhaps give them another shot of fertiliser to see if that makes any difference and then a nother touch in the growing season next March - any thoughts?

 

Persoanlly I wouldn't give any more fertiliser this year, but I would encourage them in the Spring.

Fingers crossed