Photinia, little red robin.

I bought this dwarf variety of photinia last year, planted it out around early summer and it took off pretty quick, it was doing great.

Fast forward through autumn and winter and it started suffering, it was looking very poorly. I thought the only way of saving it was to dig it up, cut it right back and put it indoors and just see what happened to it.

That was a few weeks ago and it has indeed started growing back, see pic below. Now this is a photinia, I would have expected the new shoots to be fire engine red eventually turning to green.

But as you can see the new healthy shoots are green, no shade of red in sight!!! I'm quite new to photinias, I was just wondering what's going on with it?

 

The leaves go red in autumn and some varieties loose their leaves in winter, that's all i know about them.

 

Hmm, not sure about that. I don't think with photinia that you need to wait till autumn to get those red leaves, any new growth seems to be constantly red until it matures. Below is a pic of when I first planted it out last May. As you can see the newest shoots are red. I thought the new spring growth was red, eventually turning to green?

 

Hi,
Think you may have been a bit too eager as a young plant may well drop its leaves in a cold spell /winter, even fully grown ones loose some of them.

As you have proven its roots must have been good and healthy when outside otherwise it would not be shooting so quickly now.
Assume you did not find anything wrong / grubs etc with the roots when digging it up ?

Generally, red leaves are produced to protect the tender new leaves from strong sunlight so thats probably why your indoor plant is just green, lack of direct sunlight.

The problem now is that those young leaves are tender and if you put it outside now they might drop off due to the shock, so you will have to keep it indoors until the cold weather has past.

 

Yeah, that's my plan. I realise that shocking it won't do it any favours. The reason it was looking quite poorly was that the main stems that grew last year seemed quite thin, they weren't robust at all. That recent storm "Isha" played havoc with it.

When I eventually plant it back outside I may have to stake it until I'm confident it's stems are sturdy enough for this years late autumn/winter bad weather.

I don't want to lose this plant, it has the potential to be a stunning dwarf shrub.

 

Its probably green because its indoors and the light level are too low, if it was red last year I cant see why it shouldn't be red this year but your picture is in May.

I'm looking at a 8ft high hedge over the road from me and its covered in new red shoots.