I have a row of about 12 paperbarks along the back wall of my dam. There are 3 in the middle which are really soft and sappy. The limbs bend over and may snap, the leaves are off colour,(yellowish). The ones either side are fine. Melaleuca Quinquinervia (red flowering) i think is the species.
They are just above water line but i’ve seen these trees take heavy inundation for extended periods. Crap soil, basically pretty heavy clay and crap drainage. They should love it.
I cut the affected ones back today and gave them a hit with seaweed juice, any other suggestions?

any signs of insects or fungus that could be affecting them? You have had water in the dam all the while, haven’t you?

about all i can think is – to improve drainage.
if the back of the dam is a wide delta maybe you could dig a channel so the outlying ones don’t get flooded?
the downside would be increased erosion and greater danger for the three in the middle.

Longy said:

I have a row of about 12 paperbarks along the back wall of my dam. There are 3 in the middle which are really soft and sappy. The limbs bend over and may snap, the leaves are off colour,(yellowish). The ones either side are fine. Melaleuca Quinquinervia (red flowering) i think is the species.
They are just above water line but i’ve seen these trees take heavy inundation for extended periods. Crap soil, basically pretty heavy clay and crap drainage. They should love it.
I cut the affected ones back today and gave them a hit with seaweed juice, any other suggestions?

I haven’t got anything to offer LF. Maybe a Ph test………..other than that I don’t know..I have a few of the cream flowering ones here. Some are high and dry. A couple are always in damp type soil. I have one clump of 3 of them. Two have grown normally and the third is still only about 4ft high after 12 years. Go digure!

I can’t help you there longy, but while in Sydney I met my first paper bark tree:)

Oh how beautiful the must look…. even those poor sick ones….. I hope you can fix them.

All of them have the same water. The drainage is the same for all. Yes BG the dam has been full most of the time but as i said, these trees handle inundation for extended periods. If Ph was a factor, all the trees would be crook.
Hopefully the seaweed will do for them what they need.

What about tree borers???

Longy said:

Yes BG the dam has been full most of the time but as i said, these trees handle inundation for extended periods.

I was just checkingin case there was a sudden change in water availability but that doesn’t sound like the problem.

Lucky1 said:

What about tree borers???

Can’t find any problems L1. It’s weird. The limbs are like rubber. Really soft and bendy. You can almost bend a 1 inch thick limb into a circle. The leaves on these limbs are yellowish but normal size. Maybe they’re just not good specimens. All the red flowering type are grown from cuttings as they will revert back to the original white flower if grown from seed. Maybe the propagation or transplanting was less than perfect.

bluegreen said:

Longy said:

Yes BG the dam has been full most of the time but as i said, these trees handle inundation for extended periods.

I was just checkingin case there was a sudden change in water availability but that doesn’t sound like the problem.

No BG. All 12 trees are in almost exactly the same conditions.
Strange days indeed.

Longy said:

The limbs are like rubber. Really soft and bendy. You can almost bend a 1 inch thick limb into a circle.

that is weird – potash deficiency?

bluegreen said:

Longy said:

The limbs are like rubber. Really soft and bendy. You can almost bend a 1 inch thick limb into a circle.

that is weird – potash deficiency?

Yes i wondered if potash was missing. Still doesn’t account for the perfectly healthy plants less than a metre away???
Anyway, that’s why i tried the seaweed. See what happens i guess.