Winter Gem Boxwoods are dying.

9 years ago

Hi, we live in southern Ohio and had our landscaping designed two years ago at our new home. We have over 100 winter gem boxwoods and we just lost twenty and more are looking ill. They begin to turn yellowish late last fall on the outward leaves and then it moves inward toward the core. It is a slow process of dying until they become bald on the outside.

The landscapers are at a loss as to the cause. They asked the nursery about a possible boxwood blight and while there does seem to be one, it is not in our region at all. When they dug up the dead ones, the discovered:

**No fungus

**There were still white roots that were expanding at the top going outward, but the lower root ball didn't seem to have much activity.

**The holes were quite wet(the soil is clayish), but we have had a wet spring season so probably normal. Also, there are some low blue spruce like shrubs next to them and they are thriving. (They told us if it were too wet, the spruce would also look poorly because they don't like too much water.)

Finally, we do have an irrigation system but the irrigation expert said that it is such a fine mist, that it would not be overwatering the plants. He believes that is a soil issue or a ph issue.

Anyhow, any advice would be greatly appreciated. Here are some current pics.

You can see the boxwoods that have been replaced and they are quite a dark green next to our sickly ones.

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Comments (2)

ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
9 years ago
if i had 100 plants of one kind.. i would be expecting to replace a certain number of them every year .... especially boxwood.. which have a plethora of issues ...

i would not take any further plant advice from your irrigation guy .... hes a dimwit ... B is not a plant i would be wetting every night .. presuming that is when you water ...

nor would i be wetting a BLUE spruce.. as water can wear off the wax.. that makes the tree blue ...

ken
mom2sulu thanked ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
mom2sulu
Original Author
9 years ago
Ken,

Thanks for your quick response. I appreciate it.

I think the irrigation system comes on every 3 days for 15 minutes--a misting spray. It is a smart system so that if we have had rain recently, it will not spray.

Also, according to the landscapers, they have never had issues with this variety of boxwood before-regardless of soil type. They are not a big box group, but rather a local partnership who have a really good 30+ year reputation. That is why we are nervous because they don't know what's going on either.

We had to replace 20 plants this spring and many others are now looking ill. The first year we didn't lose any. We saw the first signs in the September of last year as the leaves began to yellow and they continued to worsen over the winter and by spring they began to shed leaves.

We are having 90+ degree days, but we are thinking about turning off the irrigation system completely. We are also thinking about getting a soil sample.
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