Plants drying in spite of watering

Hello

I recently planted a few azalaeas, a Japanese blueberry and two wax leaf lugustrum's in my backyard. I've watered these routinely, you could almost say every day, but they are still slowly drying up.

Is this a water issue or do they have a blight?

It started with the wax leaf and is now showing up with e azalaeas and the Japanese blueberry.

Thanks
Sunil

When you planted them, did you loosen the soil around the rootball? If plants grow in pots for a while, the soil can become compacted and lose its ability to deliver moisture to the roots. Also, the plants can be rootbound, where the roots grow around each other and become so tightly tangled that they can't untangle themselves.

I'm not from TX, so I'm not the expert, but that's the first thing that I thought of.

I'll add:
-how did you amend the soil?
-and that pictures could help.

In your area you need to add as much humus to the soil as you can lay your hands on, my favourite is horse manure (well rotted) usually free from all stables, it helps hold moisture in the soil longer and lets the roots take up enough water before it completely drains away, it also allows air into the soil mix when added to the soil where your planting. so
In your area I would have held off planting shrubs of any type till after the summer intense heat and did it end of season or way early spring, these times allow the plant some time to settle into making new roots rather try survive the hot sun that azalea's dont really like, they are best in dapple shade with your heat, some sun yes, but intense sun most of the day is a no-no, maybe giving some shade for the rest of the summer could help, even hand made shade like 3 canes and building a wig wam type shelter could help for now. I grow loads of Azaleas and Rhododendrons and know they like shade, no early morning sun after really cold nights and acidic soil with plenty leaf-mould or other humus additives, there is also acid plant feed you can buy at garden stores BUT, please dont over feed, read the directions on the packets, over feeding is worse than no feed at all.

I would dig a hole beside the roots and sink an upside down juice plastic container, cut off the bottom and remove the cap / top. sink into the soil beside the root area and as you water, fill these containers up with water and you will know the waterings are reaching the root areas and not running off the top soil where a crust forms when the soil is baked by hot sunshine, By adding the humus I mentioned earlier that will help improve the growing conditions, will help retain water and you should see a huge difference to the plants.
I dont think there is anything wrong with your plants, like most of us gardeners, we stretch the plants abilities by growing either the wrong plants for our climate or we try to go against what nature intended for our garden area where we live, to achieve all our ideas for the plants we want but cant have, we need to change the growing conditions we have to offer and this means adding lots of soil improvements to accommodate the plants of choice, it's like loving a fur coat but we could never wear it in the intense heat so we cant expect plants to adapt without help from us to cope with the conditions they were never meant to be growing in.

I feel sure if you can manage to change the soil, help create a shade for the plants over the summer, then they will be happier and so will you, it's no fun spending money on plants and watching them perish so take heart and know we have all been in your shoes but with help and some knowledge we managed to fix the problems, well some at least. take heart and enjoy the gardening hobby, when we get it right it's wonderful as you have discovered when it begins to go wrong, get onto the Dave's Garden Site ha, ha, ha.
Good luck Sunil, best regards. WeeNel.

All those words and all I can think is "mmm, hummus" :)

LOL!!!

"mmm,hummus", my very words exactly, whenever I here there is some going free, I also think, can I get to it before anyone else get's there first as it's like gardeners gold to some gardeners like myself and for SOME new gardeners, however there are also others who think everything needed for gardening comes out a packet, or is a fast chemical fix, or insect repellents have to be dangerous to humans, animals or damage the soil.
Horse poo is natural, mostly easy to come by and has been proven the best means of improving your soil over generations of gardeners including mine, so why would I not be passing that info onto other gardeners to reap the rewards and causing NO damage to the environment, there's no argument as far as I'm concerned.

Enjoy your gardening season and have fun while doing it.
Kindest regards. WeeNel.

Too hot in Sugarland/Katy! Army Corps of Engineers messed up your area, dig WAY deep and see what kind of earth there is about 2' deep. Consider Hugelkulture type deep beds. Repot til the weather and sun arent so brutal and give em noon to evening shade and wait. til cool weather. Good luck!

Best to plant shrubbery in fall.
And Texas has TEXAS sized heat! And TEXAS sized dry!

If watering will not save them, try again this fall. But never give up.

And great advice from WeeNel.

Wishing you the best of luck!

SAEmerson

When you amend the soil (note I said 'when' and not 'if'), you might want to include some expanded shale. We use it in Dallas for our tightly compacted soil. It helps plants to actually 'drink' the water. (But not sure what type of soil you have.) Prob. all types of soil can benefit from some aeration. The cheapest and easiest way is to buy a hand held aerator with long tines that can punch holes in the ground. This loosens the soil, but more importantly, gets more air in the ground. Air in the soil is extremely important, but it's lacking in most soils. (Earthworms are good little aerators too.)

Mulch, mulch, mulch. Native shredded hardwood is my preferred mulch. Also shredded cedar.

Have to laugh about the 'poo' discussion. Once lived in Austin and had a huge garden. When a circus came to town, everyone was lining up for free elephant poo. Our gardens liked it but I think the neighborhood dogs liked it even more.

I remember when I was a child, we had a bakery horse drawn vehicle come around with fresh bread and cakes for sale, it always stopped outside our place and all the neighbours came out to buy there bread and buns, we never got those delicious goodies as my mother thought she was mother earth and baked her own buns that were actually the same texture as the edging stones and the bread was the best way of getting rid of those baby teeth as one bite and the tooth was out, jeeeeese what a waist of good butter jeeeees. Anyway we were sent out with a spade and bucket and had to shovel up the horse poo and when my Dad came home from work, he would spread it all around the Rose bushes, he had the best Roses, flowering plants of many kinds and the veg was wonderful, well until my MUM over cooked them (to kill off any bugs) we were war babies ha, ha, ha. The point of my little story is, animal poo / Manure is the best type of soil improver there is for free, most stables are delighted to give it free and it feeds, adds air to the soil and allows better drainage but holds on to moisture long enough for the roots to drink. The secret is this manure has to be well rotted till there is no fresh smell come from the heap, about 6-10 months should be fine.,

Good luck and dont look a pile of animal poo as a thing to be passed over ha, ha, ha.
Best Regards. WeeNel.

Horse poop is good poop!

Gardeners Gold and normally free and just a little work to get it home, dig it in a hey Presto, next year you have plants you could only dream off growing, JEEEEEEEZ I'm gone LOL.
WeeNel.

It doesn't matter how often you water your plants. If you are not watering them the correct amount they require each time then you will have "drying up" problems. Maybe your soil is a fast drainer?
To know your plants water requirements you really must start to use a garden moisture meter and test your soil before and after watering to ensure your plants "thirst" is quenched.

Hope this helps

Paul - http://www.moisturemeterguide.com/page7.html all about garden moisture meters.

This message was edited Mar 27, 2014 2:31 PM

It would be a good idea to do a soil test as Most Azalea's prefer a slightly acidic soil, and to amend the soil, there are products and special composts for such plants available from garden store.
Must test your soil first though as adding products to alter the PH of your soil IF it is NOT required can do more harm that good.
A very cheap soil test kit from Garden store is all you need and it will give you instant results, tell you what is needed to help the soil PH or how to amend if PH too high for Azaleas.

Something else which may help sort out the problems,
Good luck. WeeNel.