Is my Amelanchier dying??

We recently purchased an Amalanchier tree to go in a particularly wet spot in our garden, we were advised that the tree would be good for this situation and even help to improve the surrounding areas as the tree likes very moist soil. However two and a half weeks after we planted it I'm worried it's dying. The leaves have for the past few days been turning orange/red, I know this should happen in the autumn but thought it would be too soon to be doing this already. No leaves have dropped off yet.

Do you think it is dying? Do nurseries push trees on into seasons early? I'm thinking in the way they get flowering shrubs to have massive big blooms on them very early in the season in order to make them look appealing. Do they do this with trees? Could my tree have blossomed early and therefore think that it's now coming to autumn?

I will try and upload some pictures but keep getting error messages at the moment.

Thanks for any help you can give

 

Do you think it could have too much water? Or not enough? The area it is planted in has a high clay content but lots of compost was dug in before planting.

 

I have the same problem too. I suspect it due to the recent dry weather we have been having. Alot of my leaves dropped off but I found after the storms we have had it seems to have perked up a bit. Have you tried giving it lots of water since you planted it?

 

Thank you for your responses. I have been watering it but refrained from doing it too much as the ground in that area is so wet anyway, even with the recent weather, it's very heavy clay soil so takes a lot to dry out. My tree is now covered in red leaves which have turned brown underneath and are gradually falling off! How is your tree Jungle Jane? I shall be revisiting the nursery that I purchased the tree from this week to get their opinion but I think it may be a lost cause.

 

Your tree doesn't look to me like it is suffering,just starting it's next part of it's growing cycle of the leaves changing from green to the lovely orange tints.

At the moment my tree is still in green leaf and probably won't start changing for a few weeks or so now that the blackbirds have stripped all the berries off of it.

Not sure which part of the country you live in but if you are further South than I am in the Midlands then your tree should be more advanced than mine,whereas the further up North you go the later things should happen to the trees etc.

Remember your tree is a baby so still has lots of growing to do and is probably in a bit of a shock from where it used to grow and the conditions it was grown in and the conditions it is living in now.

Wait a little while longer to see if it does establish it's self ok as the first thing it should be doing is putting down roots which are more important than the top growth,but from what I can see your tree looks ok to me.

 

@Kandy When do you get berries on your Amelanchier?

 

Hi Jane,we get the berries once the white flowers have died off.They start off a red colour and then gradually go black.Evidently they are edible I think it is on the variety we have but the birds especially the blackbirds scoff them when they are looking for extra foods so usually July time.This year I had an adult and a juvenile blackbird eating them plus a few starlings.

We got the tree so that we would have a long interest of colour with the leaves going from green to the orange colour and the colour of the flowers (white) and then the fruit red/black.Plus we wanted something for the birds to eat in the hard winters but they usually strip the tree (the same as our Rowan)long before the winter sets in..

There are different varieties of this tree and ours is called Amelanchier Lamarkii/Snowy Mespilus..

 

Even though the surrounding soil is wet / moist, planting a container grown plant will mean that the rootball is in, probably, pure peat and no roots have yet ventured out into the surrounding soil. If planting in hot weather the plant will drink moisture from that rootball compost, and that is unlikely to draw in water / much water from the surrounding soil, so I would water solely into the original rootball around the plant until it has started to get some roots into the surrounding soil.

If it loses its leave (early for Autumn) I'd leave it be over winter. It will probably just in effect have an early Autumn and will hopefully come back next year. It will have been stressed, and that might give other complications - anything from it being susceptible to disease to just plain snuffing it but fingers crossed it will come back next year, perhaps take a year to recuperate and not grow much, and then get under way as if nothing had happened.