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A neighbor had to pull out all of her foundation plantings due to a water-in-the-basement problem, and pulled out a lot of mature shrubs - mostly boxwoods and something she thinks is spirea, she wasn't sure (came with the house.) Looking at photos online, I think that's what they are. She offered them to me so I said sure, what the heck - free is free and I'm ok with spending the time and effort to transplant and see if they survive. They went into a similar location, part shade. They looked healthy when pulled out, though in need of pruning. The boxwoods appear to be doing ok so far, but the others look wretched. Branches and leaves are drooping, starting to shrivel, and some leaves falling off. My question is, I know that transplanting is very hard on a plant so I don't necessarily have super-high expectations, but how soon is too soon to give up on those shrubs? Is there a kind of a shock period that I should wait out, just watering and hoping for the best? Should I have amended the slightly-acidic soil with lime? If so, is it too late to do that now?
You are right Spirea although very hardy go through severe shock especially if the roots were not maintained well when they got dug up. Did you think they got dug up correctly. I think you are going to have to drown it with water for a couple of weeks and wait a month before you give up. Were they starting to bloom. If so it would have gone through the worst shock.
I think the poor things were literally yanked out of the ground with a tractor and the roots left exposed for a day or so - not exactly ideal! I got them in the ground immediately after I got them, but still. They hadn't bloomed yet, but I do see some tiny pinkish buds. It's only been a few days, and it's been raining, so I guess I will just keep watering and see what happens. I think if they still look poorly by a week or so before 4th of July, I'll replace them. My town's parade goes right past our house; so that's a good deadline. :-) Thank you so much!
I just wanted to add an update here in case it's of use to anyone in future; sadly, it was the boxwoods that ended up not making it - over the next several weeks they dropped all their leaves and the branches were all dead (snapped when I tried to bend them.) I had to pull them out; what a shame. The spirea lost all their leaves too, but I felt like at least some of the branches were still pliable, so I cut them back nearly to the ground...lo and behold, a month or so later I noticed little green buds of some new growth, and now they appear to be growing just fine. Small, but that's better than dead! :-)
We planted 3 spireas last year, and they seemed to be doing OK, even tho they were very small. Then the dogs or deer broke the entire top of one, leaving only a stem about 2 inches long, right next to the ground. I left this dead looking little twig in the ground all winter. This spring that darn little thing came back, and is now about a foot tall. This spring the deer broke another one, (this one had been doing really good last year, and this spring) until this happened. Needless to say, I have left this one also, as I am hoping it will do a miracle recovery and come back next year. We will see, I guess, but apparently they are tough little shrubs!
