Marianne's Response

Sun damage

Hi Marianne,

The intense weather last week has left me with burned plants. Conifers, rhodys, hydrangeas, astilbes -you name it! we are lucky to have an irrigation system so we watered every night but the direct sun burned them anyway. do I prune off the damage or wait to see how they come back? I’m hoping we haven’t lost any, this yard was just installed in January. My guess is the perennials will figure it out but I’m not sure about the conifers. thank you! we attended your last Zoom seminar through Molbaks and enjoyed it very much.

Posted by Pat Hergert on July 3, 2021

Marianne's Response

So sorry about the sun damage! My yard was also scorched. The good news is most plants will survive but the bad news is that the damaged foliage will not turn green again. You can decide to cut back all the unsightly leaves as this will help to stimulate new growth. I do know that this will leave some weirdly shaped plants especially for the conifers. I just took two wheelbarrowfulls of damaged hydrangea leaves to the compost pile so  I feel your pain. My hydrangeas do look so much better and are blooming nicely so don't give up. Thanks as well for joining me on the zoom class. Keep growing, Marianne Binetti

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