kssmith said: Hi all. Back in May i planted a new shrub ... If it goes 2 or 3 days w/o rain the very top growth of each branch starts to wilt.
... Thus far in July it has rained almost every other day. The area is well drained as its near the driveway which slopes to the street. The soil is good i just removed a 7 foot Arborvitae from that spot.
Good advice here!
It's only been in the ground two months - give it more time to establish its roots before deciding the site is poor.
Deeper mulch: couldn't hurt.
Sun ALL day?!? Brand new shrub?? Shade sounds like an excellent idea, to prevent tip wilting.
>> it has rained almost every other day. The area is well drained
That kind of discourages roots from growing. If plants "think", they KNOW they have plenty of water, so why bother growing roots deeply? The answer is that after the tiny root system drinks all the water it can reach, and the good drainage sucks all the meaning water AWAY, all the plant can do is wilt and die.
Don't pamper the plant by watering every day it doesn't rain! if you do that, it will never bother growing adequate roots. Maybe water deeply IF the wilt gets severe enough that new growth is about to die, not just wilt.
The other risk is the
opposite of "water was too available so the roots got lazy".
Just because drainage was fine for an established arborvitae in normal climate conditions, doesn't
necessarily mean it is OK for a shallow-rooted shrub when it rains 3 times per week..
When I hear "rain every other day", I think: "saturated soil = drowned roots"!
You may be able to rule that out, since you dug the shrub in, and you know how your soil drains.
>> it has rained almost every other day. The area is well drained
If your soil really is WELL drained at that spot, fine, frequent rains made life too easy for a new shrub that needed to push its roots harder than its foliage.
But if it only SEEMS well drained, the roots might have been
unable to grow deep enough, which would be more serious than just "they were unmotivated to grow deep".
If you do dig down around that root ball, maybe do it right after a rain so you can see the water-logged state that MIGHT be drowning new roots every other day!
