Viburnum problems

Last year I bought a Winterthur and two Brandywines and planted them near each other. The Winterthur was small and quickly wilted and died. I thought it was simply because it was a small mail order plant. So I went to a local nursery and bought a nice-sized plant. After a month or so, about one-third of the plant wilted. Hubby had sprayed for bugs nearby and I thought that was the reason. This spring, it was obvious that we needed to prune off the areas of the plant that had wilted last year because there was no new growth. We did that and also moved the plant to another part of the yard (I suspect that wasn't a good idea now). I bought yet another Winterthur and planted it in the same spot next to the Brandywines that are doing great. Looking back now, it was probably a dumb idea to plant it in the same soil that two other plants had trouble in.

Anyway, the new Winterthur did fine, bloomed a little, then started to wilt like the others.
This was taken about three weeks ago.

Also, the Winterthur that I moved to the back of the yard is getting it again too but not as bad.
I also have Juddii, Koreanspice, Burkwoodii, and the Brandywines that are all doing great.

A close up of the leaves

This was taken about a week later.

Today, all of the leaves are brown and about a third are still hanging on. I cut one of the twigs and it is green and healthy-looking inside. No dark rings. Bark looks pretty good too.

I keep planting Winterthur because that's what's usually recommended to plant with Brandywine. Is there another variety of viburnum that might be able to live there? I've read that Winterthur is supposed to be disease resistant. I don't know anything about plant diseases and suspect that I made poor choices in planting in the same spot and perhaps moving a soil disease to another part of the yard.

Can't answer your question - just posting to commiserate. I had a very similar problem with my Prague viburnums (which I bought bcs a respected Georgia gardening guru said they were indestructible).

The leaves suddenly wilted, then turned brown and started falling off. One died and I moved the other 2. Of the two I moved, 1 died and the 1 that's left seems healthy at this point.

I've planted a couple of other things in the area where the 3 pragues were originally planted and they have done fine so apparently it was not a soil problem (I also was worried abt that.)

Good luck!
Sherry

Thanks for the ray of hope this morning.
The only indestructible plants I've found so far are weeds. LOL
I'm curious so I'm going to look up Prague's. What plants did you get to survive in the spot where the Prague didn't?

It could be something fungal in the soil, but I wonder if it couldn't also be transplant shock/watering issues. If you were planting/transplanting these in the summer or very close to summer, that can be really stressful and even if you do everything right you'll still lose things sometimes. And plants that are in their first year in the ground tend to be more susceptible to watering issues too, if you have good draining soil it's pretty easy to underwater them and if you have clay soil it's very possible to overwater them. So I'd go back and examine what time of year it was when you planted or transplanted and look at your watering practices and see if you can figure out if something like that might have been the problem.

Thanks so much for responding.
I went back through my pictures and it looks like I planted it in the last week of April. That's before our last frost date but we didn't have any low temps. It didn't start to show any problems until late July or early August. We've had a pretty wet year but I could have messed up with watering. Our soil is clay but it's heavily amended with aged leaf humus. It's moist but drains well with lots of big, fat worms. The PH is neutral so it's difficult to make acid-loving plants happy. But the plant didn't show signs of wanting a more acid soil. I didn't fertilize it.

I haven't seen any evidence of any critters but I think we have spider mites on other plants. It gets sun most of the day but was mulched with leaf humus (but not touching the stem). I gave a gentle tug on the plant to see if it was rooted and it seems to be solidly in the ground.

Sorry, I haven't checked in in a few days so I just saw your question.

I've had 2 different things in that area since I moved the viburnums out and I've had no problems. I've got Japanese ligustrum (I know, I know, but I needed a quick screen) and elaeagnus. So I guess it wasn't a soil problem.

I hope you can save your viburnums!
Sherry

Just because you planted some other things there doesn't necessarily mean it wasn't a soil problem--many of the soil born fungal diseases affect certain families of plants but not others, so when you plant something that's not closely related to viburnums there, they may not be susceptible to that particular disease. Or it could be there really wasn't a problem.

Reading in Michael Dirr's book on viburnums, it looks like yours might have botryosphaeria canker. If this is the case, he says that the plants most susceptible are those under drought stress. Since yours is newly transplanted and I assume that you're having the same suddenly dry conditions we're having in my area, perhaps it's are too dry. He says to provide additional water and prune off infected branches. In your case, you might need to cut it back severely, hoping for new growth next year. (Look for dark brown to black pimple-like fungal fruiting structures on the branches that are dying back.

Thanks so much! I'll go out tomorrow morning and check it out real close up and see what I can find.