tree health

Question

What is making my crepe mytrle sick? I live in the San Diego area, and I love this tree and the shade it offers and it would crush me to lose it. It dropped all its leaves a couple months ago when it got colder. Buds. leaves are beginning to come back, but not everywhere, and I noticed last year leaves dropping after getting yellow/brown on the edges. The bark looks normal. Our soil is mostly lousy clay, and though we water it sufficiently the area is suffering drought and the water may be slightly saline as a result. I added some gypsum last year when it began looking sickly. We are not the most diligent tree caretakers, we have 2 acres and it’s a lot of work. We also have 3 mulberries (planted long before we moved here) , they are dying of some fungus and I worry it may be something that can spread?

Answer 1

There are many fungi that can and do infect these. The best thing that I can suggest is to hold off on the watering during the winter, and let it go dormant. This is what it will do naturally. When you start to see new growth is when you will apply, both, dolomitic lime, and wettable sulfur. This will take care of the infection.