Monkeypuzzle tree turning brown

Monkeypuzzletree

Hello, can anyone give me any hints or tips on why my monkeypuzzletree is turning brown?

Not enough water OR could it be that he is lacking oxygene. I am asking this as the soil around is now overgrown with ivy which is also climbing up his trunk, now about 1 meter high.

the tree belongs to a house which I have recently bought but I am not the keyholder yet. I think the tree is about 30+ years old, was planted shortly after the house was built. when i first saw the house in june the tree was still in very good condition, he has deteriorated since then, however.

Grateful for any help!!

Thank you very much
anette , the netherlands

Eric Frei

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GreenHorn

Hi, not trying to hijack this, but mind if I seize the opporunity until MonkeyPuzzle gets back?

This little guy was looking much the same in a (24" dia. ?) pot in a little enclosed back patio in the city with very little light. Not a happy place! It was given to me to give a home. It has been in the ground for nealy 2 months and is not improving. In fact, the needles seem slightly browner and ever so slightly softer I think. Forgive my crimes against trees if I have done anything wrong here.

I dug a hole just slightly larger than the pot, but forked out the side walls as well and they seem penetrable. The soil is dense enough black Irish muddy soil, but seemed soft enough there for roots to penetrate. The site was a vegetable garden 6 years ago and was tilled and rolled and may be somewhat compacted. I gently knocked off some of the soil from the pot, but never moved the ball from the roots as is. I filled in with a mixture of 25% of the original soil from the hole crumbled and 75% "specialist tree and shrub compost". I found a small packet of little slow release nitrogen pelets in there so I sprinkled no more than 12 of them in just under the surface. I have not fed or treated with anything else. We had a rare dry sunny spell for weeks when it was planted so I gave it a large watering can every other day. Our tap water has a strong lime content. We have typical frequent rain now. The morning sun comes from over that wall and it gets good mid day sunshine except of the brief light shade of that double birch tree. I think the depth is right. There's a very thick arching root almost exposed at the surface. So it's not too deep, but wouldn't want to be deeper.

The sticks are just to keep the cats and dogs out. The 2 lowest branches were dry brown and I snipped them with scissors. Pitch fork indicates scale. I am on my way to get mulch now. There is an enormous monkey puzzle in a speciment tree forest park about 5 miles away. It must be at least 100 years old.

Any opinions or tips would be hugely appreciated as I'd love this tree to establish and be healthy. But it doesn't look happy. Apologies again I'm so clueless. This seems like the best place in the world to ask. Cheers.

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GreenHorn

OK. Brevity this time! (not allowed to edit my post)

I assume it needs some food. Flippin "Miracle Grow"? Seaweed from the beach? Or something better known to be ideal?

Opinions on health and location? (The huge old one I know would fit in that spot).

Do I have to tip in advance?

Eric Frei

Do not fertilize.

I suspect 3 things.

1. Potting mix it came in may have turned hydrophobic, use a soil wetting agent.
2. Addition of compost on finer "knocked off soil" roots may have been to rich and caused some burning.
3. Possibly drowning in the hole due to overwatering, check soil moisture with finger or meter.

Also put a 50mm layer of mulch around it but not right up to the stem of the tree.

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GreenHorn

Thanks Ekka. I was reading about so many people in Ireland and England who have fertilised A. Araucuna and how they thrive - and also about how some research says it can damage these trees in the long run. I'll certainly trust your advice! Had I listened to the conventional wisdom - I'd have been feeding it by this evening!

I'll check out for hydrophobia. I had a phobia it was drowning over the last two days of deluge! Must check soild for drainage on the flip side! I never really saw the roots. The pot was massive! I just took a bit off the circumference at the top where weeds were taking. Thanks again. I hope I can report back with good news someday soon.

Brent Ferris

I agree with Ekka. THe slow release fertilizer was almost certainly a bad idea for newly planted stock. A well planted tree should never know it got moved. Initially, it needs water, air and sun.

GreenHorn

I was afraid of that. They are tiny and I really only put a few down cautiously (a fraction of the recommended proportion on the packet). So is organic manure even a bad idea? Other threads swear by feeding these guys in this neck of the globe - especially at transplant.

Water - Not a problem! I gave it a small soaking when it went into dry ground and then a couple litres every 2-3 days while we were dry and sunny for weeks! (Veritable drought by Irish standards! - Like you said - didn't want it to know its conditions had changed). It has been raining an awful lot recently. I really hope the soil is draining enough. I would hate to have to try to move it again! Monkeypuzzle grows very well in this climate though. This tree was in a dark corner of the city for too long! Maybe it will pull through.

Don't even give it organic maure? (neighbours have healthy horses

If the "mud" its in is not draining or breathing enough - how do I rectify that without touching the roots? A tiny red maple sapling was 2 feet away from the same spot for a few months and it was rocketing.

GreenHorn

I just picked out all the nitrogen pelets by hand that were over the pot soil and under a little layer of compost. We'll see. Mulch on Ecca. Where's the "fingers crossed" smiley?

Eric Frei

LOL, I hear you, and there's people that still reckon you paint wounds, reduce trees to "nodes" but it's not topping, fill cavities with concrete etc.

Excessive growth is not a good thing either, trees will always forgo defence for growth and if you really feed them up they grow to poor form.

Funny isn't it, trees lives fine in a large pot in the nursery. You plant it in your garden and wella, all these problems.

Why? What has changed? Well to the tree a real lot. It gets vibrated and shaken on it's journey, fine root hairs likely damaged. Sometime people lift it by the trunk, that's a real shocker for it. The soil around it can be like a sponge and draw water, on the other hand it could be the opposite. Give it some thought and you'll find many other things that can upset the tree.

To regenerate roots is the key, they like moisture, temperatures over 16C and under 30C, fungi also can bond with the tree roots .... there's many good ones and not many bad ones so an environment that grows mushrooms will likely grow roots. Look around to see if you can buy some mycorrhizal fungi to help it along, and a good soil conditioner is Seasol or equivalent.

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Brent Ferris

Good advice Ekka!!!

GreenHorn

Yeah, Thanks Ekka. I'll try those suggestions. 3 or 4 species of mushrooms regularly come up in the same yard. So I got that going for me

I'll do as you suggest. I just saw 3 other monkey puzzles of the same exact size in someone elses garden yesterday. Much richer green leaves and longer branches. I hope that the main problem is that it was deprived of light and now that it is getting it, it'll improve. I hear ya about the delicate roots. I was conscious enough to ease it out of the pot by gravity rather than pulling - but there's still an awful lot of movement around inside the ball I guess.

Thanks for your advice. This forum in general has educated me soooo much about lots of things and I won't be making the same mistakes again and particularly not the ones that have been made to 6 trees in this garden before I took ownership of it!

Alex Metzler

ekkas da man, its usually the little accumulative stresses over time that leads to the plants decline, soil being a major roll in a plants health and development is usually a good place to start looking for signs, healthy trees have healthy root systems. too much water and theres not enough oxygen, too much oxygen and theres no osmosis. to each is there own; plants dont all thrive in the same soil conditions.
but finding the plants balance is easier said than done.
like ekka said, a soft insulating mulch (nothing too rich) would look to be a beneficial step in the right direction, water less for sure, every other day is way too often, maybe inoculate the soil with mycorrhizal bacterium- fungus that stimulates and encourages root production by creating a symbiotic relationship, (mycorrhiza aids the plants root system in osmosis) and many other things as the plant shares nutrients ect.
sharing is caring!

GreenHorn

Thanks for the reinforcement Metzler. Yeak I know "Ekka's de man"

I went for a a "fine" shredded pure bark mulch (best I could find close by - no additives and seemed actually not too fine, not too thick). The tree's branches seem to have lifted slightly from their droop. I'm waiting for a darker green to appear rather than the yellowish green (but I don't know how that works on these perma-needles!) Like I said - these trees grow well here even with the constant rain. I live in Ireland. It can rain every day for weeks and weeks! Perhaps the litre or 2 every couple to 3 days from a watering can over the weeks we were in what in Ireland would be considered "drought" was too much, but the ground was really dry and I'm sure now a lot of it was sucked away / drained after having more closely examined the behaviour of the soil "out back" We were abnormally dry, hot and sunny!

Since that episode - the tree was rained on non-stop for 3 days once or twice including torrent. It's only drizzled constantly or rained briefly every other day on average now and as we are back to normal - no watering of flowers or anything!

Will get the mycorrhiza stuff and perpaps the seasol? Like I said - it seems to have perked and is not disimproving. After I'm long done pushing up daisys - it'll look like this one 5 miles away.

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GreenHorn

Right. It's never as simple as that!

Hard time finding Mycorrhizal fungi in Ireland except for this RootGrow / Root grow plus brand - Mostly in the UK. Seems like a mix and with god knows what else in it.

Now I know I need ectomycorrhizal not endomycorrhizal. "RootGrow" is for flowers and crops and stuff (I'd assume endo) and they say "root grow plus" is safe for 90% of trees - deciduous trees and conifers like spruces and pines. But not to use it on ericaceous plants! Now I know a araucana aint exactly a rhododendron, but it's a lime hater and yellowing like one!


In trying to find the fungi - an organic nursary type person asked what colour the hydrangeas were around here and advised Sequesterd Iron Plant Tonic to try reverse the damage caused by Lime (remember the tap water I gave it when we had no rain! The cups of tea around here have lime scale floating on top!)

Sooo....how do I harvest and propogate this stuff by myself!?

windthrown

Fungi are easy to collect; just rot some wood chips/fir needles/leaf mulch in a pile. No need to buy spores. UC Davis studies show that local fungi will work fine for native plants or plants that grow like natives, or in most improved soil. Buying spores will only help if they are exotic plants not adapted to the local climate, or if the soil is very poor. Monkey puzzle (or monkey tail) does very well here in green and wet Oregon, so I presume that they will do well there in Ireland all by themselves. They are extremely slow growing trees though. There used to be tons of large ones in the city of Portland when I was a kid, as they were the craze 40 years before then (in the 1920s). They are becomming very popular here again. You can transplant the crap out of them here when they are smaller, and they hardly notice being moved.

Regarding fertilizers, the only thing to watch is nitrogen. The other elements are not going to massively affect or over-stimulate growth. Nitrogen is easy to control though, as it is readily soluble. Simply add water and the nitrogen will leach out of the soil. Slow release fertilizer should not be a problem, as the fertilizer released will be in small amounts. Soil microbes compete for the fertilizer as well. If your soil is acidic, add more phosphate, as the phosphates in acid soils bind with metals. If you soil is alkaline, add chelated iron, as the iron in the soil will not not available to plant roots in soil with a high pH.

Brent Ferris

Any particular studies, Windthrown?

windthrown

Not available online/internet that I am aware of. Stuff I got from an intensive farming class a few years ago through Oregon State University. Basic premise was that the fungal mass in the soil will self-start and grow on its own, but you need to account for the time it takes to get it going. Also that the exotics get the most benefit from it in poor soil. In good soil and with natives, you need not worry about it.

Eric Frei

Greenhorn,

Do a pH test on the soil near the tree.

You need to correct it before the tree can take up nutrients. If the pH is way out of whack you can do all you want but the tree is restricted in it's take up of elements.

If it is too alkaline (like pH 10 etc) you add sulphur (diluted with water using watering can) to correct it back to around pH 6.5. Follow the guide that comes with the sulphur as to how much to use per m2 etc.

Do this first, was an oversight not checking the pH in the first instance, I assumed it was OK and was not aware of the poor water you have. Here I test tap water and it's pretty good, between 6.5 and 7

Also look around for a "compost tea", there are home brew kits for it with aerators here, brew a batch in an old wheelie bin or tub etc.

Get the soil right and the plant will look after itself.

Tinker with the soil (fertilizer, iron etc) and you may well create a life support system where continual intervention is required as you now control the elements and not the plant and soil foodweb.

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windthrown

Sulfur is slow and it takes an enormous amount of time and materials like compost tea to change soil pH. pH is a log scale, so one point on the scale is 10x the previous point. There are compounds like RAK (aluminum sulphate if I recall right) that will change the soil pH in a more radical way. Pro nursieries here use that on hydrangias to get them to turn blue rather than purple by changing alkaline to acidic soil. Here are some links about changing soil pH:

How To Change Your Soil's pH | Horticulture and Home Pest News
HGIC 1650 Changing the pH of Your Soil : Extension : Clemson University : South Carolina

Personally I have found it easier to apply the minerals and elements required for healthy plant growth in a particular soil type, rather than try to change the soil pH. Acid soil? ...add super phosphate. Alkaline soil? ...add chelated iron. I use these as well as "normal" fertilizers, organic or inorganic.