Cytisus battandieri

Hello everyone
I am again asking about this tree. It has grown in my garden for about 10 years. I started it from seed. Its about twenty feet high and as wide. A couple of weeks ago, we cut several of the trunks because they seemed to be badly diseased. There was a fair amount of dieback in the branches from these trunks and the lower parts of the trunks - probably about 5-8 inches in diameter seemed to have some kind of blackening - not soft or spongy, but hard, like from a fire. The tree was grown as part of a shade canopy around an eating area. About twenty feet away is a fig which in previous years had some kind of blackened small branches which I cut out, and since it did not reappear after a couple of years, I ignored. A Clerodendrum trichotomum about twenty feet from the Cytisus started to die over the last three years - many small branches dying, and this year, those branches which are left, have leaves which are about half size of the usual and often droop. My hope is it will recover and that I can do something to save the Cytisus. There is also a Clematis, of the viticella type on the fence between the Clerodendum and the Pear (which most years has some scab) which seems to be dying back. It is also about twenty feet from the Cytisus.
Does anyone have any experience with the blackening on the Cytisus trunks? All of the trees are part of squirrel highways to the bird feeding stations and show many gouges from their claws.

Two possibilities come to my mind. One is that my neighbor has been using roundup on his side of the fence and roots have been damaged.
The other is that these plants have been given too much water - although they have not been watered much this summer, and usually fended for themselves other years. My neighbor on the other side of the fence waters often and the water certainly falls on the Clematis and the Clerodendrum but not the fig or the Cytisus.

The Cytisus is such a beautiful tree I would hate to lose it. Any help or suggestions would be very much appreciated.

Thanks
Anna

Other Mailing lists | Author Index | Date Index | Subject Index | Thread Index