I planted a pink dogwood this spring, and have kept it watered well during our dry, hot summer, and about 2 months ago, it started drying up and losing leaves. It absolutely looks horrid. I'm not sure it's even still alive, except that it has to be, because I just noticed that it has buds on the ends of all the branches. I'm sure those weren't there a couple of weeks ago. Here are some pics of it. Any thoughts on this situation?
The buds...
Tough year to start a new tree in the Midwest. I guess just be grateful your Ohio weather has been less disastrous than ours here in central Illinois.
Dogwoods are sensitive to droughts, and new dogwoods obviously are even more sensitive. But give it a chance and see what happens. If your summer watering has been sufficient (say, about 10 gallons once every week or so for a tree that size) and if it was planted and mulched correctly (?), it might surprise you next spring.
Guy S.
Thanks, Guy. Do you think the buds we see are a good sign? Or could they have been there and we didn't notice them? We have a white dogwood that we've had for many years and it does fine, but the new ones...
I don't think our weather has been less disastrous than yours, where I live. Whenever rain was predicted, it seemed it always went north or south of us. We are crying for rain. The grass is brown and crunchy and everything is just dry, dry, dry. Big cracks in the yard and gardens. :-(
We've just watered this particular dogwood on a more daily basis than one big watering once a week. We didn't mulch it...
The buds formed in midsummer, when the new growth matured and there were still leaves on the tree. Daily soaking could drown a dogwood, so lay off the water now until the soil starts to dry out or until any remaining leaves show a bit of wilting, then douse it good (10 gallons). And do mulch it, covering as large a circle as possible (6 feet?) to a depth of 2-3 inches. It would have helped much more during the summer, but it will still help now, keeping the roots cooler and later providing some protection from winter temp extremes.
You didn't ask anything about planting, so I assume you did that properly. Dogwoods are very sensitive to being planted too deeply or (if container grown) to not having the container mix washed out and the roots spread at planting time.
Many trees are stressed this year -- we are seeing 80-year-old trees dying here in our record drought (yes, it's even worse here than in Ohio) -- but your little tree might be OK next year. Don't expect too much top growth for a year or two, and watch for borers and other secondary problems until it regains vigor.
All together now -- let's do rain dance . . .
Guy S.
Well, we didn't mess with the root ball too much when we removed it from the container, and it hasn't been mulched, but we were careful not to plant it too deep. The one dogwood that we've had for years didn't grow much at all and never bloomed, then my mom said it looked like it was planted too deep. We dug out around it and it bloomed the next year, and has been growing better. We actually don't want it to grow too quickly, since it's under our pergola. But it looks very healthy and just right. :-)
We really can't mulch that far around it, because it's planted in the middle of a grouping of flowers.
