How to find an arborist, why hollies don't get enough water on drip line irrigation and more from Neil Sperry's gardening column.
are 3 years old. Until this year they have done well. They are on daily drip irrigation, and in June and July, I added hand-watering and feed. All the plants are slowly turning yellow and dropping leaves. My research turned up such varied results as “iron deficiency” and “fungus.” Can you please help me?This is neither iron deficiency nor a fungus. The plant in your photo has gotten too dry. That’s what caused those lower leaves to develop browned, scorched leaves.
Drip irrigation is a scary thing with hollies. It’s been my experience that many people who use it end up with plants that don’t get enough water. At high temperatures and with mulch soaking up moisture on the surface, it takes a long running time to get enough water down to the bottoms of the root balls to give them proper irrigation.
Your idea to supplement with hand-watering is excellent, but this damage appears to have been from earlier in the summer, so it’s just going to take time for the plants to outgrow it. Q: Can you tell what is destroying my tomatoes? Entire stems have been eaten off. Leaves are stuck together.It’s hard to zoom in enough to identify every possible problem, but it looks like you have had tomato hornworms visit your plants. Just one of the large well-camouflaged caterpillars can quickly strip foliage off big parts of one plant.
I think I’m also seeing leaves that have been bound together by tomato pinworms, and there may even be discoloration and dying caused by spider mites. Tomatoes have many problems. You might want to do some reading up ahead of time next season so you can watch for early warning symptoms and quickly step to your plants’ rescue.