Any green thumbs out there?

[multiweb (Marc)]

A question for all the gardening gurus. I can't get around this one. I have some Japanese Box (from bunnings) that I'm trying to grow to make a hedge eventually. For the life of me I can't get the freakin' things to grow and last. I did everything by the book. Blood and bone, water a bit, not too much, fertilise them, etc, etc... They go for a while then die. I buy new ones grow them then the other ones die. It's like musical chairs? I am that close to concrete the whole bloody thing. That's been going on since October last year. What am I doing wrong?

[Robert9 (Robert)]

Strange you should mention concrete. Is there any buried beneath the surface?

[multiweb (Marc)]

Well I'd say there's a fair bit of building material buried deeper yeah because we did a house extension in 2003 so lots of broken bricks and other stuff maybe. I did put some clay breaker stuff in the holes prior.

[Allan_L (Allan)]

Hi Marc,

My wife is a horticulturist at Bunnings.
She said that you may be expecting too much from Japanese Box.
They only grow to about 30-40cm and so would not be much good as a hedge.

She feels that you may be killing them with kindness, eg over fertilizing, or water.

She said to take em back to Bunnings and speak to their resident plant expert.

But again, she is not sure they are the best plant as a hedge.

Hope this helps.

Edit: Re Roberts point, if too much building rubble underneath, could be lime in mortar could be leaching into the soil.
This could effect the Ph adversely.

[AstralTraveller (David)]

You say they die but don't say how. Do they just wilt? Do they discolour then wilt? Do they grow at all between planting and dying?

My first guess is that you are burning the roots. Almost anything you put in to help the plants can burn them if it is too concentrated around the roots. In this case I'd be very suspicious of the clay breaker (calcium sulphate). That and the fertiliser need to be well and truly dug in and watered in before planting. Even leave it a while and get it rained on before planting. If there is too much concrete nearby the lime in the concrete can raise the pH too high, so I'd clear out as much as I could. Lastly, if the plants have become root-bound in the pot you need to trim off the deformed roots. The exact amount you remove depends a bit on the plant but you should leave only straight well-formed roots. If you don't the plant may survive but it will always be sickly. In servere cases, where you cut a lot of root away, you may need to trim back the top of the plant so the roots don't have too much foliage to support.

BTW a friend removed dozens of Eucs from his hobby farm and put in fresh seedlings after realising he had 'J-rooted' them. That means that he let a curve develop on the end of the tap root because the holes were too shallow. The trees would have grown but been very prone to falling over due to the poor root structure.

[traveller (Bo)]

Similar to what Allan said, check the soil ph, esp at the root zone. lime and mortar will make the soil alkaline, apply sulfur if needed.
HTH
Bo

[multiweb (Marc)]

Originally Posted by AstralTraveller

You say they die but don't say how. Do they just wilt? Do they discolour then wilt? Do they grow at all between planting and dying? My first guess is that you are burning the roots. .

They grow very slightly then turn yellow/brown and cack it. Could be burning the roots yeah. I'll try digging bigger holes.

Originally Posted by Allan_L

Hi Marc,

My wife is a horticulturist at Bunnings.
She said that you may be expecting too much from Japanese Box.
They only grow to about 30-40cm and so would not be much good as a hedge.

She feels that you may be killing them with kindness, eg over fertilizing, or water.

She said to take em back to Bunnings and speak to their resident plant expert.

But again, she is not sure they are the best plant as a hedge.

Hope this helps.

Edit: Re Roberts point, if too much building rubble underneath, could be lime in mortar could be leaching into the soil.
This could effect the Ph adversely.

Thanks mate. Will try planting something I can't kill.

Originally Posted by traveller

Similar to what Allan said, check the soil ph, esp at the root zone. lime and mortar will make the soil alkaline, apply sulfur if needed.
HTH
Bo

Sulfur hey? Do I get this stuff from Bunnings as well. I'll do a bit of reading on how to check the soil PH. It might be acid with all the dust and mortar and what not it got sprinkled with over the years.

Even my grass is having a real hard time in the front. The backyard one is fine though so something's going on in the front. I tend to get more weeds than grass and I keep weedin' (by hand) they keep coming. I then tried to reseed. Even put cow manure with top soil last srping. Even with all the water we've been getting - No luck. At a loss there too. I'm loosing the weed war.

[AstralTraveller (David)]

Sorry folks but I'm about to be a pain-in-the-butt pedant. The measure of acidity that everyone refers to is correctly written 'pH' and, as a chemist, Ph, ph etc give me the heeby jeebies. The 'p' means "negative of the log base 10 of the activity of.." which is pretty close to "negative of the log base 10 of the concentration of.." and the 'H' stands for hydrogen. So the term is "the negative of the log base 10 of the hydrogen ion concentration". Similarly you can have pOH for hydroxide concentration or pCl for chloride. You can even have pKa which is the negative log of the disassociation constant of a weak acid and a few others that escape me at the moment. I'm similarly distressed by KM for km (KM = kelvin mega whereas km = kilo metre) etc.

Phew, I feel better with that off my chest. Now back to dying plants.

[multiweb (Marc)]

Originally Posted by AstralTraveller

Phew, I feel better with that off my chest. Now back to dying plants.

The postie reckons I don't talk enough to them. Maybe I should buy a chemistry book.

[TrevorW]

I always thought the small p was just that no wondered I flunked chemistry

[Baddad (Marty)]

pH of 5.5 to 7.4 preferred. According to:

http://www.aussiegardening.com.au/fi...uxus_harlandii

Concrete wall nearby can force the pH to 9. Concrete in soil? who knows.

Cheers