Why WHy Why!!?

So I have had a hard week. I had a buxus (pretty sure) that I collected from the emergency lane on the side of the highway in march of this year. Yamadori at 65mph. It had fallen off of a landscapers truck having been pulled out the ground but had a good size root ball and it was still pretty cold so I stopped just to check. It looked like it would make a great raft tree and had the base already there. I was looking forward to cutting it back and getting it on it's way. I planted it in the ground and it came back really well, thrived the whole summer of 110 degree heat and then the other day I found it in this state:




I believe it is a bacterial infection so I will just rip it out and get it away from everything else. I found a Pholidoptera griseoaptera-like insect in the plant and suspect it may have something to do with the infection but it would be pure speculation on my part.

THEN, to make my week worse I found a cork bark elm that was in waiting but close to being put into a training bonsai pot (as oppose to a garden container) that had dried out beyond recovery of the leaves and is now leafless and will either leaf out again or die off completely.

So I bought bourbon today...do you think that will cure the bacterial infection and bring back the elm?

Because the first rule of bonsai is Murphy's Law.
The bourbon might help.
You have my sympathy. I lost one of my best trees this summer, as a side effect of medication. They tried something for glaucoma on me that left me in a fog for three days. I don't know what happened, but the following day the tree was dead.
It happens to all of us.
Iris

Thanks for commiserating with me Iris, sorry to hear you lost one of your best that has to be hard. I take some comfort in the fact that I only lost a few potential trees. I too was wiped out by a couple of particularly hard days at work and then going to the art studio at night to get ready for a show opening Oct 3. I would pass the trees on my way in and out giving them a cursory one-eyed glance and felt they were ok, then I got some sleep and realized I had neglected them. The bourbon helped a little but I may have to try again tonight

Jim,

First, that's not a Buxus. Looks like our native gallberry - Ilex glabra.

And I think your problems are not likely to be insect or fungal, but more likely heat, lack of water and bad timing. Don't beat yourself up too badly, elms are tough and it may surprise you.. I hope so, at least.

Russell

Thanks for the id on it, I never was sure. I thought it was a water issue myself but it was pretty well watered and survived the highest heat over the summer. The other clue (I think) is that it is dying from (on the leaves and the plant as a whole) the center out as appose to the tips in (which I always understood to be how plants showed stress from lack of water). It is also dying in sections and not on the whole. half of the plant still looks good even though it was evenly watered.

The core of the elm seems to have come back, I will wait to see if it leafs out.

Good luck with it Jim. As has been said already, it may yet surprise you. I am still waiting to see if the browning at the end of the foliage on one of my favourite junipers is merely a blip or if it is fatal. I also have a trident maple which has struggled all summer after our poor winter of 2009. Hopefully both will make full recoveries, but it is at this point we realise that we are merely the custodians no matter how much we think we have "tamed" our trees. Ma Nature will always win - we just have to learn to live with that fact.

FIONA,I am sorry about your bad luck with those trees!!! I hope they will be better befor cold sets in..I have tried to reach you about some of mine,,guess you have been too busy..check on the elm for sure I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW ABOUT THEM.. Good luck john

Jim, you also have to consider that the Buxus/Ilex/whatever was certainly in shock when you found it and all the apparent growth over the summer may only have been the reserve energy it had stored up before being ripped out of the ground.

I bet your elm will be OK

JIM,,I am so sorry I did not read who made the post when I made the comment..I thought it was Fionas as I had been trying to reach her...anyway you are a lot closer to me so I would still like to know how the trees are doing??? IS the elm going to be ok?? I am a lover of elm trees I have 6 chinese elms in the back yard..I really hope they both get well..sorry again for misreading..good luck john in w.va.

Jim, that's a good point that I hadn't really thought of since it was doing so well this summer. I think you are right on the the elm, I had one that I did this to years ago and it came back just fine.

John, no problem at all, I deduced that much and didn't have a chance to make you aware of it before your second email. I think the elms will be alright as long as I take care not to water it too much which is difficult with 97 degree days in September?!!

fiona wrote: ... ... I am still waiting to see if the browning at the end of the foliage on one of my favourite junipers is merely a blip or if it is fatal. ... ...

Similar problem with my azalea. Brown tips and then those leaves fall. And the story goes on since end of July.... However the azalea looks ok for the time being.

Jim Doiron wrote: ... ... I take care not to water it too much which is difficult with 97 degree days in September?!!

Copy this here!

Good luck to our trees!

Much sympathy from me. I've had more types of problems and far more losses this year than ever before and I'm kinda numb from it. All the problems pple have mentioned and more. Blame it on the heat and move on - life is for the living.