laurus nobilis seems to be dying

Hi all, i'm here again to pick your brains. A few months back I bought a luarus nobilis from B + Q to go by our front door, it looked fine for the first few months but recently the leaves have started going brown and falling off. I'm still very new to all this gardening so maybe going back to basic might be an idea !! I've been watering it about twice a week, is this about right ? Its placed by my front door and gets quite a bit of sunlight but it quite well sheltered from any bad weather !! Just a thought, and please excuse my ignorance but when I've been watering it i've just been water the soil in the pot and not the whole plant, might this be the problem ?

thanks in advance

charlton

 

Hi Charlton

Bay trees are often treated badly in DIY sheds so yours may just be suffering from accumulated neglect. It may take the rest of this year to recover.

It's normal for a bay to shed leaves in the late spring as new growth starts to appear - do you have any new leaves showing at all?

I'm guessing that it was sold in a very small pot? If so, then watering it twice a week is OK as long as you don't leave it standing in a saucer of water in between the waterings. You don't need to water the foliage.

Have you fed it yet? I bet B&Q didn't feed it so it could probably do with some fertilizer but only if it's showing signs of active growth

In the wild, bay trees can grow to about 50 ft so it's quite an unnatural life that we make them lead. I've had the same bay tree in a pot for over 30 years and they can be very impressive plants once they have settled down to their restricted regime.

 

thanks for the reply flinty, I don't seem to have any new growth coming through yet, the leaves that are falling off are actually going brown first before falling off hence why I thought it might be dying !! It did come in a small pot but I've since re-potted it in a larger one but after getting advice of another friend he advised me that I shouldv'e tried to open the roots up a bit before repotting, is this correct advice and is it worth re doing it now ? And lastly I haven't fed it yet, whats the best to use for a bay tree, preferably something form B+Q becuase I'll be able to there sooner than a garden centre, thanks in advance and sorry for the long reply !!

charlton

 

Hi Charlton

The fact that your tree is losing leaves and not growing any more yet suggests a physiological problem rather than disease or pest attack.

When you repot a bay, you should increase the size of pot by only a little each time. The idea is that you let the roots expand to fill the pot (with the tree getting bigger all the while) and you increase the size of pot until the tree is as big as you want it to be.

As for expanding the root ball when you upsize, this is not as important as it is when you're planting out a plant into the open soil. With a bay tree, you're trying to let it get bigger in a controlled way.

When my bay was in its growing phase, all I ever did was just tease out a few roots to help the process of establishment. These days, I give my bay a root prune every spring to help maintain it at the same size, which it has been for the last 20 years or so. In practice, it's a form of bonsai.

Personally, I wouldn't advise hauling your tree out of its pot and spreading its roots now unless it was badly potbound when you took it out the first time.

There's a difference between a plant being potbound and merely filling a pot with its roots. Potbound means having main roots that are wrapped round and round the main ball. If it was pot bound, it would be worth taking it out and teasing the roots out, If it wasn't, I'd leave the roots alone for this year. After all, it's no worse off than if you had left it in its original pot.

I give my bay regular doses of whatever liquid feed I have to hand throughout the summer. But if you've already repotted yours into a bigger pot, it would have had the extra nutrients in the new compost to keep it going for a while. I'd give it a weak feed now and then no more food for at least 3-4 weeks. If it's not putting on new leaves, it's not actively growing and so it wouldn't be able to absorb the food anyway. Once new leaves start to show, then you can feed it.

If it's already in a bigger pot, try letting the compost dry out a bit in between waterings.

Good luck.