Bay Tree

My Bay Tree is about 5 foot tall and lives in a very large clay pot on the kitchen patio with full sun till mid-afternoon, sun just starting to go off it now. It's been very happy in the five+ years since it came from the IoW except that it gets sooty mould every winter which I wash off with soapy water.

Just recently some of the leaves have developed a large brown patch ...



.... it tends to be on the upper/newer leaves but not on all stems and the remainder are healthy.

As we've been running unusually high temperatures of late (up to 36c), I've been hosing it at night and was wondering if perhaps it's sun burn?

Any thoughts or ideas?

Many thanks.

 

Hi victoria, Have you checked the trunk for scale insect? Th boogers have gotten on mine which is quite large as well and I have had some sooty mold on it due to them. Thankfully they have been easy to remove. Not sure if they would be responsible for the brown leaves, maybe you could just clip them off and see what happens.

 

Hi Victoria

Yup, that looks like scorch to me. Possibly residual moisture from its nightly shower getting caught by the hot morning sun?

Like catztail says, just trim the leaves (or whole shoot) off. I trim my bay tree continuously throughout the summer, just a little but very often.

 

Thank you catz and Flinty .. confirmed my thoughts ... will remedy over the weekend and change waterng habits.