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| My Autumn Joy looked great all through the summer with nice green leaves and growing straight up with stems nice and strong, but within the last couple of weeks, a lot of the leaves are turning yellow and falling off the plant. I even find myself taking some off due the how lousy it can make the plant look. The blooms on top are nice and just beginning to turn light pink. Does anyone else have this problem with the leaves on their Autumn Joy? I haven't watered it much at all this summer and rain has been pretty scarce, with the exception of a few thunder storms, so I can't understand why this is happening. I thought when leaves turn yellow on this plant, and drop off, it's due to too much watering.
Any thoughts or advice is greatly appreciated. Linda |
Follow-Up Postings:
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| Yes, leaves can yellow with too much water, but they also yellow and fall with too little water. Water the poor thing. Sedums need less water than most plants, but they still need water. I've been watering every few days since we haven't had rain in weeks and it's been HOT. My Autumn Joy is simply spectacular this year or at least it will be when the flowers open. Kevin |
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- Posted by ken_adrian z5 (My Page) on Mon, Sep 3, 12 at 10:03
| same answer as the link and the same for any other plant that is under performing this fall .. IMHO ... in 12 years.. in mineral sand ... i have never watered a sedum.. they have good years.. and bad years .... one of my truisms ... in my head anyway ... is that a stressed plant.. will sacrifice the lower or oldest leaves.. to procreate/flower ... add that to a very hard summer for many of us ... so its losing some older.. used up leaves.. so be it ... once you rule out an actual reason for the damage ... and frankly.. does anything bother a sedum???? .. especially since you ruled out too much water ??? boy the coffee is really making it hard to type coherently.. lol ... hope you can make heads and tails out of it... ken |
Here is a link that might be useful: link
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| It might be A watering thing but it also might not. Give it a good tug to see if it's still well rooted into the ground. Is it just one plant or is it a group? Like ken said sedums are tough plants, they might not grow well in a drought but usually don't lose leaves. Someone I know once left a sedum on their concrete steps for two years because they were distracted by a crying baby while transplanting... It survived and actually bloomed in the fall, even after most of the soil washed away. I don't think it ever showed any yellow leaves, so I suspect yours must have some root problems. |
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- Posted by mad_gallica Z5 Eastern NY (My Page) on Mon, Sep 3, 12 at 14:31
| How many flood alerts have you had? We started out the summer wet, then turned dry, and turned back into wet early August. There were a couple of weeks when we seemed to have the daily thunderstorm. If you got that, and don't have good drainage at that particular site, I an definitely imagine a sedum getting root rot. I guess just dig it up, and see what is going on down there. Voles would be another possibility. |
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| Is the sedum within reach of dogs? Nothing like dog pee to send a perfectly fine plant into mysterious decline. |
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| Due to circumstances beyond my control, I have to relocate a garden-has anyone moved these plants & if so, is it better to do now or in early spring? Everything has to be moved by April 1. |
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| jessew - these are tough plants. Move anytime. I've moved them both fall & spring. In fact a garden writer in my state suggests to lift & break feeder roots in late spring so that the plants stay shorter & flop less. We have a wet Oct - June, so only 3 months of dry weather in summer right before bloom. I water them during the dry season, but mostly because nearby plants or lawn is watered. If in pots I also water some, but not a lot. They prefer well drained soil. I've kept some clumps as they were dug for weeks in a cardboard box & they still lived. It's easy to divide them by the way, so you could just cut out a chunk to take along & leave the rest. |
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| Kind of good news-I'll have a new woodland garden in the spring, so I'll be wintering some of my perennials & replanting them then. Some will still be finding new homes with family & friends, I plan to dig the sedums this weekend. I started digging & potting today, my husband said "That's a truckload (actually SUV) of plants!" I corrected him-"That's the FIRST load!" I am dividing plants-Hello hatchet! |
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| Chiming in late here, but it also could be voles. If a vole is eating the root system, the plant goes into a slow, yellowing, decline. Eventually when you tug on the root system, you can pull up sections of the plant by its (former) roots. Voles love Sedum, and they nearly wiped out my beautiful Matrona plants in the front garden, along with the Echinacea, Salvia 'Black & Blue', Phlox, Baptisia, etc. They ate 90%+ of the root systems, leaving me fragments of plants. Well I fixed them good by using a Castor oil solution, and wire cages around the root systems of these plants. It worked! |
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| I put in new starts of Autumn Joy Sedum last year hearing how tough and drought tolerant they are. When it came time for blooming though, I was not thrilled at how lack luster the color was. Even though they were young plants, they were fair sized by fall. I've got them in my front yard, and if they never really look that great, I'll move them to the backyard or side yard. |
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| Yes, they are usually very tough, drought tolerant, fall color plants. It was a rough summer, give them another full season to settle in and shine for you. Last summer, to add a little drought tolerant color variety, I added Xenox and Matrona (with purplish stems and leaves) to my difficult to water bed. Deb |
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| I'm probably going to yank both my main perennial bed clumps of "Autumn Joy" this spring.The plants look promising up until bloom time, but hold color only briefly before going a dull russet-brown. Sedum "Autumn Fire" has been much more showy and dependable over a long blooming season in my garden. |
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