Heat damage-prune? feed?

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kathyrepp Pleasant Hill, CA(Zone 9b) Jul 11, 2008

We have had unusually hot weather here and I have many shrubs and trees with brown leaves. Should I remove damaged leaves, or leave them until the weather settles down? Should I feed these stressed plants, or wait? All of the plants are young, as we had our garden completely redone this past winter. Plants include lily magnolia, loropetalum, hydrangeas, chionanthus retusus, cercis canadensis, and tristaniopsis laurina.

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snapple45 Holland, OH(Zone 5b) Jul 11, 2008

That's a lovely plant list. Adequate water on a regular basis is the best care for heat stressed plants. Regularity is equally important to quantity. You can remove the dead leaves if you like but there is no real advantage in doing so. A fertilizer is a salt. Salt draws moisture. When you fertilize you add a salt to the soil and it can actually wick away water from the roots, which if applied in excess, is fertilizer burn. That's why it's often recommended that fertilizer be watered in, to make it soluable, available to the roots and to avoid fertilizer burn. So, fertilizing an already stressed plant is not a good idea. Plus you don't want to push a plant to put out new growth when it is stressed. I am assuming here, that having completely redone your garden, mulch was applied to keep the soil moist, to moderate soil temperatures and suppress weeds.

Another step you could take if unusual excessive heat threatens is to temporarily put up 40% shade cloth. It could be a hassle to erect but it would provide some shade and respite for your plants until they become established. The link below will give you an idea of types of shade cloth.

http://www.catalogclearance.com/depts/shadecloth.html/?wcw=google

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ecrane3 Dublin, CA(Zone 9a) Jul 11, 2008

I'd be tempted to leave the leaves in place--if we get more blazing hot weather they are providing a bit of shade to the leaves underneath them, so if you remove them then you might have the next layer of leaves burn the next time it gets hot.

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kathyrepp Pleasant Hill, CA(Zone 9b) Jul 12, 2008

Thank you both! I'll leave everything alone for now, maybe shade the hydrangeas.

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