Sudden Death of croton ?

[irene_kingsley]

Not long ago, i had planted some crotons along the road side and after a few months, the croton's leaves suddenly collaspe and eventually to slow death.. Do anyone know why is this happening?

in my opinion i suspect that it is water logging and maybe too much watering? This afternoon, i took out some of them and take a good look at the root system.. They are dead.. no signs of live roots too.. We try to cut them back but it still die off... =(

99.5% of crotons in bags (place on the ground) are doing perfectly fine. Only 0.5% face the same problem, and the method i used is to cut back the plant, reduce the number of leaves and re-plant it into a smaller bag with roots that are sprayed with fungicide.. In 3 cases, 2 came back and 1 couldnt make it..

 

[Moose]

Irene - from your description I would say your analysis is correct. Although crotons are water lovers, the require a soil that does not remain saturated for long periods of time. I am speculating that the roots began to rot first from lack of aeriation in the soil and then the dreaded fungus began to feed on the rot. It was it's final blow. This may seem strange that you can root a cutting in pure water, but there are always active microbes in the soil.

By the way Irene, it would be interesting if you shared some images of your croton collection with us. I suspect you have some real gems?

 

[irene_kingsley]

hahaha! sure! I would love to share. =) This is the pic of wilted croton compare with healthy onces (strange , it doesnt affect all at the same plot, but that one particular one..MAybe after awhile, another one will start wilting..) it will start losing its leaves day by day...till death...

it's silly of me not taking the root system here..but if tml i got time to go back office, i will take another shot of the root system...