Thanks!

looks pretty vigorous ... on that new growth ... imo ... it cant be suffering all that much ....

i would probably wait to see how they look after they are fully leafed out.. before i go worrying about older leaves ... whatever the problem is.. OR PERHAPS WAS... may have fixed itself ... so i am always leery of trying to fix it again ...

no evergreen plant.. holds its leaves forever.. and the older leaves can be shed after any kind of insult ... but.. in tree or shrub time ... its hard to ID what event happened in the last year that may have caused it on any given plant ...and in my much colder zone ... i see a lot of winter damage evergreen leaves and i just dont let them bother me ...

and yes.. i have had two plants.. in different parts of the yard do things differently ...

there isnt plastic under that mulch.. is there???

finally ... fert is never an answer ... after 3 years in the ground.. those plants should be free range ... and unless a soil test indicates something is missing from the soil .. they probably shouldnt ever need anymore ...

ken

You are correct, the yellowing leaves could suggest a nutrient deficiency OR overly wet soils - you are the one to decide which is the most likely in your conditions.

If a nutrient deficiency, it is more likely to be lack of Nitrogen, as chlorosis shows up on the newest growth while lack of N shows up on the older foliage. And Portuguese laurel is very tolerant of a wide range of soil pH so pH-induced iron chlorosis is unlikely to be a bother.

And pls disregard the above comment ("fert is never an answer").........fertilizer or nutrient supplementation is often warranted in a cultivated garden and N is the most common nutrient requiring supplementation.

These plants are bullet proof here (and I'm 9b too) and I've never seen that yellowing pattern but I would second the above comment about wetness or nitrogen. Our soils are not nitrogen-deficient, and I've had these flourish in both overly dry and wettish spots, so I'm guessing some nitrogen would help. I use alfalfa pellets and just scatter them around the base of the plant (I only fertilize roses), but there are countless forms of nitrogen supplements available.

Thank you all for your replies! Glad to hear it doesn’t seem like anything too dire. Our winter has been pretty wet so the roots could well have struggled to absorb nutrients. Conditions will be drier from now so I’ll keep an eye on the new leaves to see if they show the same signs or not. They were planted about 18 months ago, so hopefully by next winter they’ll be better established to cope.

I need to weed and put more mulch down to tidy up anyway (there’s no plastic), and was considering using a “mulch&feed” product, which is a mulch containing organic amendments such as blood&bone, sheep pellets, chicken compost etc. This way increase the nitrogen and maybe improve soil drainage a bit at the same time. Does this sound like a good idea? Rather than specifically fertilising?

Bulletproof here too.

Prunus lusitanica near me. Look how big, red and square those trunks grow ;-)

(A sign of the times. Woman on her mobile with poor old redundant phone box right alongside.)

I like bulletproof. And I like little fertilising too. I’m all for easy-care! So long as those yellowing leaves settle down...

What about insects? I noticed they got a bit eaten by something last season, not enough to worry about, and these are background shrubs so don’t need to be leaf-perfect anyway, but I was a bit disappointed. Wondered if I should have planted something else.

New growth looks good, not showing that yellowing pattern.

You can see the older leaves with it at the bottom in this photo.

But my gaura (whirling butterflies, I think) in the same area are a mess.

These two smaller ones are a bit clearer - there’s nothing upright in the centre, just a flattened sprawling crown. Anything I can do at this stage?

Sample your soil and have it tested. Otherwise fertilization will be a crap shoot.

Thanks for your suggestion. From further reading it sounds like Gaura can sprawl like this in rich soil, so maybe they would have grown more upright on the bare clay bank up the hill rather than in this bed where we dug extra topsoil and compost in. Oh well...

Flora, I'd grow your Laurel just for the trunk alone! ;-)