Ballerina Indian Hawthorne

My beautiful plants are losing their lower leaves, after they turn a goldish color.
They looked great in the spring and so far it hasn't got very hot and they are in partial shade. I am watering with a soaker hose once a week for about 6 hours as the nursery suggested. I have a row of about 6 and the ones in the middle are doing this. Any suggestions?

Unless your soil is especially sandy, 6 hours of watering is a lot. I have several Indian hawthorns and I water them once a week (if we don't get sufficient rain) for only 1 1/2 hours. Can't be sure since I can't see your shrubs but it does sound like this is the result of too much water.

I agree about the watering, especially since it's not hot yet and they're in part shade that sounds like an awful lot of water. Leaves turning yellow and then falling off is one of the typical symptoms of overwatering.

Thank you, ecrane & NatureLover. I think you are both right. The nursery told me that 1 x per week watering will make the plant stronger but maybe it doesn't apply to shrubs. I am going to try 2x per week, 3 hours. What do you think? We haven't got much rain so far this year, and this week temps are around 100.

Here is a picture of the problem.

Kind of looks a bit like sunburn too, but usually that's something you'll see when you first plant something if it's in a sunnier location than it's used to. But since you've had it in the ground for a bit I don't think that would be the problem.

As far as your watering--6 hours a week sounds like way too much even if you split it up into 2 sessions instead of all at once, an hour a week sounds much closer to right, although the true appropriate amt of water is going to depend on your climate and soil. If you're growing them in a sand dune then maybe 6 hrs would be needed, but anywhere else at best you're wasting water and at worst you're drowning the plant. The nursery is right, watering deeply once a week is going to be better for the plant than watering a little bit every day, what you want to have is a deep soaking which will get water way down into the soil, that will encourage the plant's roots to grow deep and then once it's established it won't need as much water. Frequent shallow watering will keep the roots near the soil surface and the plant will constantly need water for its whole life.

Would It be pos to dig close to one of the weeker plants and scrape away gently, some of the soil, this would give you a better idea of what is happening UNDER the surface, did you add any compost into the planting holes when you planted, or just out the pot and into the hole, I always add some compost and plant food to the planting holes as the plants have been in these pots for a real long time getting to sale size, it is also a good idea to tease out some of the plant roots when planting, or they just grow around in circles as in the pot, It does look like an over watering problem, however, it could also be another problem under ground, these plants have glossy leaves so should'nt be dropping for lack of water, but maybe some soil deficiency
rather than loose them now, I would want to investigate under grownd and before they get any worse and correct what you find is the problem,
and then you will know if your watering too much, soil not got enough humas in it or maybe the roots are not spread out enough to get any food/water. hope you can solve the probmem as you have obviously gone to a lot of trouble and expence, if you do dig, do it at the coolest time of day so the roots dont get burned. Good luck. WeeNel.