Hedging and hedges – problems with laurel hedges

If your laurel stems are green and a bit slimy, don’t despair – there’s been a massive increase in algal growth on a wide range of trees this year due to the very damp and moist conditions but it does no harm and in any reasonably dry period of weather you can go out and brush off the dry algal mould which is on the trunks.

If areas of your laurel hedge have patches of the leaves that have curled up and have what looks like a white substance on them, examine the curled leaves for aphid damage. This is very common at the beginning of summer and the white substance will be powdery mildew which follows the aphids and can be sprayed with a general fungicide.

Laurels do not like being over-watered but if your laurel hedge is newly planted you need to offer regular watering until the roots have become established in the sub soil – all evergreen hedges lose some of their leaves during the winter months, but if the leaf drop seems unusually substantial, your laurel may have waterlogged roots. Improve the draining and in spring, offer your plants slow release fertiliser. In 2005 we had a drought, which caused many plants to have dieback of what are called the adventitious roots, which are the tiny branching roots that distribute themselves through the soil. They are better at taking up water than the larger roots, which are really more like tunnels that transport water and nutrients and the result of that dieback is that in a wetter summer, the larger roots actually take up less water and therefore sit in the damp, which the plants don’t like.

Hedge gardening laurel photograph by blugeoner86, used under a creative commons attribution licence

 

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