according to your name.. where are you.. big city name... how was winter .. and the summer before.. drought or anything ... give us some facts we can work with ...

i have often found.. i have more damage with rather mild winters.. than i do with bad ones .. go figure on that ...

otherwise .. a little leaf damage rarely bothers large established trees.. and based on your pic.. this might be the largest WH ive ever seen .. in my MI anyway ...

its good to try to figure it out.. but as of now.. i consider what i see in the pic as very minor damage ... btw .. any frost or freeze since leaf out???

ken

I am in PA. I planted the witch hazel about 20-30 years ago. It never had any issues. Always healthy and full bloom Feb-Mar. It was a mild winter but it has been mild for the last 5-6 years. Summer was hot and dry but it has been that way for the last 5-6 years or more. Rarely needed water. I do have people come to apply garlic spray to fend off mosquitoes. It may coincide with it. But they been applying garlic for more than 7-8 years. They could have changed their formula. It got cold after leaves are out. That too nothing new. The weather does that around here. The damage is not limited to a few. Not whole tree yet but if it spreads, it could take over the whole tree.

My neighbor has a witch hazel about the age of yours, and I have noticed the same shriveled brown leaves on hers. It appears that the older branches and the higher branches are more likely to have such leaves, while the lower and newer branches have lots of healthy new growth. I think that my neighbor's shrub needs a thorough pruning back, but it's not my shrub; if the affected leaves on your shrub are on the older higher branches, could it also need a pruning? Just my observations.

I forgot to add that my neighbor's witch hazel keeps flowering every winter, so I would guess that yours isn't dying.

Sorry, but pruning is not going to resolve these issues. In fact, witch hazels seldom require any pruning and doing so can adversely affect their spreading, vase-shaped habit.

They are prone to a couple of root diseases that could cause branch dieback and dead or drying foliage....phytophthora root rot (typically associated with poor drainage or excessive rainfall or watering) and honey fungus, Armillaria species.

@gardengal48 (PNW Z8/9)You may have something there. It rained a lot. It has been a wet spring. I will check on phytophthora root rot. Is it curable?

I checked on phytophthora root rot. My Rhoda has that. This looks different. They seemed to start with tiny black speckles on the leaves.

Not curable, no. But not always fatal either. And there are numerous species of phytophthora so not all will present with identical symptoms.

Anything I can do?

Depends on what the specific problem is. In case it is honey fungus look up how to check for that, what it looks like. Unlike microscopic water molds such as Phytophthora that is something where you can actually see parts of the involved organism at work.

hi snow, this is probably not what you wanted to hear. Pictured here are my AP witch hazel which is a cross of Asian parentage. I took this pic today but my plants have looked like this every May for the last 10 years. Within a month they shed the dead foliage and leaf out again. This disease does not cause dieback but for sure it weakens the plant. I think what happens is the diseased leaves lay on the ground, reinfect the foliage next May and the problem continues.

Do you only have the one tree? Maybe try mowing/raking the fallen leaves and burn them.

This leaf blight is a serious issue for AP witch hazel. Common witch hazel is nearby and folliage is clean with no defect.

If the 'Arnold Promise' is grafted maybe there is a delayed incompatibility issue that has been manifesting in this manner during those years.

Not that I have seen or heard anything said about delayed incompatibility in grafted witch hazels. But a grafted Chinese witch hazel I have had for a long time certainly has the usual problem with the Virginia witch hazel rootstock sprouting like a weed. At the same time that the Chinese scion continues to lack vigor - it's like if I really poured on the water each summer, regularly top dressed and/or fertilized around the specimen then I might get a normal growth and appearance out of the scion. Yet as I said the stock has no problem growing back vigorously from repeated cutting down.

snowcountry, this pic shows a Chinese witch hazel with a leaf disorder. It is not my plant. I am afraid that this is a serious problem. It weakens the plant and may lead to dieback and eventual removal. Sorry,, I don't have a remedy.