Berberis darwinii going brown

Hi i need some advice on my Berberis darwinii as alot of it is starting to turn very brown and looks like it's dying. I planted small Berberis last year for a small hedge and it done really well last summer. Any advice or tips would be much appreciated. PS I am a novice gardener.

 

Welcome to Gardeners Corner. We were all novice gardeners at 1 time.
To make a better diagnosis photos of your Berberis would be helpful and knowing what area you live in.
I tried growing this Berberis without a lot of success as in my experience it is not that hardy/ tolerant of very cold temperatures and especially cold winds. It is native to Chile.
I suspect but not sure that as it was a newly planted hedge it has suffered from a less than kind winter, especially the very cold east winds.
Hopefully the plants are not dying just had a nasty shock. I would wait until things warm up which should be now but isn't and then prune off the brown sections. The middle of the stems should be green, if brown then prune back until the middle is green. If the middle of the stems are brown all the way to the bottom then I'm afraid the plants are dead. Hope this makes sense.

 

Warm welcome donny1972

Berberis Darwinii can suffer in cold winters and, boy, have we had a cold spell recently with two beasts from the east in rapid succession. So I think your berberis has been hit by those conditions. Being small plants they would have been esp vulnerable. In the next few weeks they should recover and then you can trim them back.

Two other points......Darwinii wont like it if the soil is too wet. Does it drain well there? My own is in very free draining, even dry, soil and thrives.

Not applicable in your case I think but there is a relatively new pest that attacks berberis, a sawfly that can decimate a plant very quickly. This is prevalent during the summer months

In short, I wouldn't be too concerned donny

Can you give us some feedback donny to let us know how your plants did?

 

Thank you so much for your replies. I live in northern Ireland and yes we have had alot of very cold weather. The ground is fairly well drained so I don't think that is the problem. I will try pruning back the dead branches and hopefully it will recover.

 

You are more than welcome @donny1972 . Hopefully your lovely choice of hedge will recover. It might be an idea to give it a feed after you prune it (wear very thick gloves ). Nothing fancy, something like Growmore should be fine, it's freely available in garden centres and lots of supermarkets. Just remember to only feed as per the instructions, don't "kill with kindness", ie overfeed.

 

Delay pruning back for a tad longer though sonny. We may have another cold session yet