A Gardeners Forum Forums General Discussion The Plants and Flowers Forum Shrubs and Trees Holly is dropping leaves!

We are having a very dry spell already here in Nashville. I watered and fertilized my holly tree that was planted last fall. Now, 3 days later, it is dropping leaves so fast that it may be bald by the end of the week! What have I done?? I've never seen such. Any thoughts?

Also, what time of day did you put the
fert on??
Morning, afternoon, nighttime??

And was the soil dry when you put it on?
Or already watered, and then put on???

I would suspect the fertilizer too. Try watering it again (real thoroughly) to leach out some of the fert. A stressed plant doesn't need fert, just water.

Hmmm...sounds like I stressed the poor thing in my attempt to help it grow. I used Miracid according to directions and applied it to dry soil. Since then I have watered well and today it is finally raining a nice steady rain all day long. Whew. This episode wouldn't kill it right? Just stress it? None of the other plants I fertilized that day are hurting, thank goodness. This tree is so important to me though because its purpose is to hide the neighbor's unsightly junk...that is, once it grows some more. Thanks all.

Didn't think about it yesterday but did you check the underside of your leaves for insects? A white covering on them indicates you need to spray with whatever insecticide you prefer. Insects will definately cause hollys to drop leaves.

Fertilizing when the soil is dry,
does more to hurt the plant..

Should also water the soil first
or have the soil moist before fertilizing,
then that way, if the plant was dry and needed water,
then was supplied with the water/fertilizer,
and it hurried up and drank the water,
it can burn the roots/plants...

Yes, to also it being the bugs too..

Or did you check the roots' themselves,
are they mis~colored, or mushy, or dried/shrivel,
or eaten?????????