Hi all,
This is one of two of these that I have in the same bed. This one is suffering greatly and I don't know why. The other one is perky and happy. The leaves on this one are all droopy and the bottom ones are blackening and falling off. How can I help it?
I would start by checking on your watering--I can't tell from your picture if there might be something else going on, but drooping and falling off leaves can mean either too much or too little water. The blackening makes it sound more like overwatering, but you'll be able to tell pretty easily if you stick your finger down a couple inches in the soil and see how wet it feels. If it's sopping wet, then you need to cut back, but if it's bone dry then it probably needs more water. Or if you just planted it, it could be transplant shock, but correct watering is very important for new plants too so it still wouldn't hurt to do the finger test.
If you decide that over or underwatering isn't the issue, and it continues to not perk up, then your plant probably has "verticillium wilt."
It's a fungus disease that clogs the water transporting tissues of the plant making it incapable of absorbing water.
Sometimes the plant recovers, but yours appears to have the disease throughout.
Probably better to get rid of the plant if you don't see any signs of improvement.
Thank you all s much for your replies!
We had just installed rain gutters and the downspout lets out about two feet past this plant, going away from it, so I thought maybe it wasn't getting enough water, then maybe too much. I haven't done any additional watering since I suspected overwatering, so it is just getting rain water. I just checked the soil and it is moist though we have not had that uch rain recently. The plant's roots are not very strong -- it wobbled quite a bit at the base when I was poking around.
Rachel, I think it is an Aucuba japonica variegata.
If it is verticillium wilt, is it best to dig the plant up to or just cut it back. Can that spread to other plants in the bed?
Thanks again everyone!
Plants can rebuild roots so if you baby it and make sure the conditions are correct for it it may recover. Patience is about all you can have if that's it. A root growth hormone (such as Superthrive) may help it recover, but not fertilizer. That could make it worse. Your other plants should be safe unless it's been too wet for them as well.
It does appear to be an aucuba japonica, as someone suggested. Is it in the sun? If so, the black areas are sunburn. Those shrubs need total shade. The wilting could also be stress from the sunlight.
I have an evergreen (I can't think of the name offhand) that I suspected had wilt. Large portions of the plant suddenly became droopy, and the leaves subsequently ended up falling. I ended up cutting almost half of one plant, and brought it in to the nursery that I had purchased it from. The nursery recommended taking the plant out. I decided to keep it because it was part of my shrub border, and half of the plant still looked healthy. There were actually two different plants involved.
Two years later, you would never know that this plant had any problems. It seems to have completely recovered. I don't know if this is what your plant actually had, but I did want to point out that it is possible for it to recover from wilt. This is my plant in August 2007.
I purchased my first acuba this spring. When I was checking them in the nursery, several had blackened areas. According to the manager for the shrubs area, the acuba had probably come into contact with the sides of the refrigerated cars that they use to transport the plants from the west coast. They are shade plants, but I have seen them around the area in partial sun as well.
We run into this situation often on Dave's. Variegated acuba japonica burns in Texas with even an hour of sun. In Virginia conditions may be different.
All this info is so appreciated! I think the sun could be the culprit. This plant is at the edge of the bed whereas the other one is further down and doesn't get the sun. DH was saddened by it and pulled it out today. The roots looked very...weak, limp, scraggly. We tossed it in our excess vegetation area which is in the shade. Who knows, maybe it will pop back up over there!
The house I bought 40 miles inland East of San Francisco, had 2 established bushes over 4 feet tall. Facing North-East and got less than 2hrs of sun. it thrived most of the year but hot summers would burn ends of leaves black, but it always recovered. I had to move both to pour footings for a deck in September, so I planted them under my large Japanese maple tree to shelter them. They weren't happy with the move and never bounced back.
Last thanksgiving I saw two varieties of it on the shelf and took home 2 plants. I divided them into 4 pots, one which lives in my office shares the soil with my snake-plant is doing great; secret being that it's not exposed to sun, gets indirect daylight and gets watered once/week.
The others not so great. I was keeping them in my garage until I could plant them in spring. But late December it got very cold and leaves were dropping so i brought them in, another one lost all its leaves and now I'm keeping my fingers crossed as I'm nursing the 4th pot.
Based on my experience, I believe this plant does not handle extreme hot or cold and doesn't like to soak its feet in the water, prefers a well drained soil, watered not more than once a week.
