Help! My plants are dying and I don't know why.

[tootiredtoclean]

I have some red star cordyline in my garden and they've all started to die. I have replaced two but don't want to keep doing this. We have been watering them but then got told they don't need watering at all so have stopped, more and more keep looking like they're about to die.

What am I doing wrong?

If there’s been no significant rain and you don’t water then they won’t survive. It’s strange to be told not to water them. As far as I know they are native to New Zealand where the climate is similar to our, but in reverse seasons. They don’t come from desert conditions.
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I would say that is dead. Dig it up and do a post mortem. How wet is the soil around the roots? You can kill tings through drought both by failing to water, or by letting the roots sit in soggy soil so that they rot and can not longer function. Any sign of pests? - look particularly for dust sized creatures, or fine webs around the growing tip.

Water.

I have had to water loads of this this year that I don't normally, as it is so dry.
I can see it is surrounded by stones. Is the membrane under the stones one that lets water through? If not the plant isn't getting any water at all!

Who told you not to water it? They do grow in dry conditions but you let the soil dry out then water it, remove the dead leave throughout the growing season, I suspect the not watering it has killed it.

Is it stones? Or bark chippings? sorry, I looked again and wasn't sure

It's surrounded by bark. The one that died before just pulled straight out so I'm hoping to revive this one.
I asked a gardener who's got some and they said I could be over watering them as was doing it twice a day in the heat. There's drainage underneath so the soil shouldn't stay soggy. We've had 2 die over the winter hence why I thought maybe they don't like being watered.

Can't see any pests/webs around it either

There is a mid ground between over watering and not watering at all op. If the gardener said you could be over watering they would be right. But that’s not the same as saying stop watering them totally. It’s saying water them less.

The soil is definitely wet still. I asked how often they water there's and the response was never just leave it for the rain. So that's what I've done. Since I asked it's pretty much rained daily/every other day

if it pulls straight out, then it doesn' have roots.
There are lots of reasons why it might not have roots

over watered and roots rotted. (would only really expect that in a very soggy spot though)
pests eating roots (likely) eg vine beetle
poor roots to start with and they didn't grow.

and other thigns that I can't remember

If you’d been over watering before and the roots had rotted as it was so wet, that’s why it would have pulled straight out.

I've got a few of them and some seem ok and others not so I'm wondering if maybe they're too close together and I've over watered them. I'm going to cut off all the dead and cross my fingers. Pests could be something we have loads of insects in the house over the summer.

The one that pulled straight out was over the winter. I put it in a pot and it's spurred out a new root. Thought it was just winter that killed it but now a few months later more look the same.

Do you really like the plant? If stuff keeps dying I tend to get rid of it and get stuff in that survives better in my garden.

I've tried them on several occasions in my garden, they just don't like it for some reason and don't last long. They aren't particularly hardy either.

watering twice a day is definitely excessive. one big dose of water (at least 20 seconds with the hose) every 2 or 3 days should be fine for most plants.

The red ones aren’t very hardy. I went to a talk at Kew Gardens once, they said to tie up the leaves over winter so the crown doesn’t get waterlogged.

Check your soil Ph. You can get kits off amazon cheap enough or from garden centre. Looking at the photo I'm guessing either wrong soil Ph or poor/ wrong nutrients.

Twice a day for a bedding plant is mad. If it needs it, it'll die when you go on holiday (well, you know, eventually). If it doesn't need it it'll rot out.

We were only doing it once then watched Alan Titchmarsh who said it should be twice when it was hot. We don't usually do it twice a day.

Thank you, didn't know about tying up the leaves over winter.

We've got an entire border of them. Very tempted to just not replace them and have grass if they all die. It's maybe 3 out of 20 at the minute. The others are all doing ok so far. 2 previous ones were replaced but I can't keep doing that.

That’s annoying if you’ve got a whole border of them. Maybe the rest will be ok.

Very tempted to just not replace them and have grass if they all die. You could get a similar effect with clumps of the more decorative grasses.

Gosh that is puzzling OP. I have 3 enormous cordylines in big pots that have survived very well ( so far - fingers crossed!) on benign neglect for over a decade - all of them grown from tiny garden centre scraps to 'trees' with well-developed trunks over 8 feet high. We don't water at all in the winter and then maybe 3-4 x weekly in the summer if it's dry, with a bit of feed and a top up of their compost in the spring. Ours are on an east-facing patio that seems to give them the right amount of sun. We've never protected or tied them up in the winter as ours is a typical sheltered London garden. Not saying all that to boast, more to say there's nothing that sticks out to me as what you're doing 'wrong'!

Thank you. Maybe we've definitely been trying too hard as we haven't done much different apart from the watering. Would be lovely once they've grown and more of a feature. Our garden isn't really sheltered so maybe that's contributed too.