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| I have had several varieties: 'Dorothy Wycoff', 'Flaming Silver', 'Little Heath', 'Brouwers' Beauty', and they virtually all languish. I have a large garden with hundreds upon hundreds of shrubs and trees, and these are the worst performing plants that I have. The 'Flaming Silver' still look decent, but I lost all of the 'Little Heath' and 'Brouwers Beauty' and the 'Dorothy Wycoff' do not look great. My suspicion is that my soil, which is very slightly alkaline, is not to their liking, that they want acid soil and will do poorly without it. There are lovely Pieris on the other side of the County at Quarryhill Botanical Garden but their soil is about 6.5. Anyone have any thoughts? If the soil pH is the problem I will stop falling for them and move on!
I posted this on the CA forum but got little reply so I thought I'd try here. |
Follow-Up Postings:
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- Posted by mad_gallica Z5 Eastern NY (My Page) on Wed, Jul 11, 12 at 10:22
| Yes. Definitely acid soil plants. I can't grow them either. I'm surprised the botanical garden can grow them at 6.5. They may very well be acidifying the soil. |
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- Posted by formandfoliage 9b (Sunset zone 15) (My Page) on Wed, Jul 11, 12 at 10:41
| They're not acidifying but the Pieris there are only straight japonicas, which may make a difference. They have four large specimens all grown from seed planted from 1992-96, in different parts of the garden. Thx! |
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- Posted by gardengal48 PNW zone 8 (My Page) on Wed, Jul 11, 12 at 13:05
| A pH of 6.5 is fine, although an iron supplementation at that level may be necessary. Pieris of all sorts grow like weeds here in the PNW (one of my favored fall-back garden workhorse plants for design clients) and our soils are typically only slightly to moderately acidic (6.0-6.5 usually). But alkaline soil will not work :-) I'd suspect the heat of CA as well as lack of water may also have a role. |
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- Posted by ken_adrian z5 (My Page) on Wed, Jul 11, 12 at 13:19
| have you considered calling the arboretum .. and asking for the head gardener .... and simply asking??? teaching is kinda the whole point of arboretums.botanical gardens ... i found the local hidden lakes gardens guy actually .. very talkative .. in the olden days.. you would leave a message .... and the darn gardener wouldnt even know how to use the message machine.. let alone the phone.. lol.. but with cells these days.. you might be connected right to him ... ya never know.. if you dont try ... ken |
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| That's an easy plant to go crazy over; I love them, too. I'm remembering from somewhere a rather terse description that sticks in my mind : "absolutely intolerant of alkaline or neutral soils ". Even if you can provide all of the other basic requirements, I think that the pH issue trumps it all. The botanical garden lucks out with its acid soil, even if mildly so.
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- Posted by formandfoliage 9b (Sunset zone 15) (My Page) on Wed, Jul 11, 12 at 14:28
| Thanks all - you have answered my question. I was afraid that was going to be the answer! Ken I volunteer at that bot garden and the director is the one that gave me the info about their soil pH. He just wasn't sure about how intolerant the genus was of mildly alkaline soils. As confirmed above, very! |
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| In general you can assume Ericads must have it acidic unless known otherwise. Obvious exceptions there madrona and manzanita. And as a rule they can be expected to be prone to root rot, needing a cool, well-aerated soil. Even up here - where it is overcast or partly cloudy 10 months out of the year - many plantings display problems due to unsuitable rooting environments. Even on extremely rainy Yaku Jima the pieris grow along streams, which they poison. They must water a lot at Quarryhill, because they are growing monsoonal climate plants in a Mediterranean climate. |
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- Posted by formandfoliage 9b (Sunset zone 15) (My Page) on Thu, Jul 12, 12 at 15:41
| Yes they do water - and the plants are in more of a woodland setting than they are here. I use drip; they overhead water. I think that I am pushing the envelope with these plants even without the pH issue, but with an inhospitable pH, I will never be able to 'make it up' by more water, cooler location in the garden, etc. I will just sadly put them on the list of things that I cannot grow. |
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