Question
I have a hardy eyonymus fortunei plant. Early this spring - I noticed brown edges and tremendous leaf drop. So when it warmed a lil - I sprayed it with Dormant spray(A couple of my other trees also had leaf rust and leaf blight - so I thot the eyonymus had the same issue). That seemed to halt the leaf drop. And I pruned it back into shape - as usual. A month later I noticed the brown edges on the under lying leaves and more leaf drop. So I sprayed Dormant again - this time targeting the underlying leaves and the soil below the plant. Incidentally - I have wood chips under the plant - so I am unable to pick up all the dropped leaves - unless I completely remove all the chips and sort out the dropped leaves. The leaf drop still continues - and I dont know what to do. I dont want to loose the plant. And its right next to the Japanese Eyonymus - so I'm hoping whatever's happening to this one doesnt infect the healthy plant next to it. Please help.

Answer
Dear Farah, It actually sounds like your euonymous isn't getting enough water.  That would be the most likely cause of the leaf drop and browned edges of leaves.  If it is a new plant, it should be watered fairly frequently, like every two or three days.  Now the other most likely thing to go wrong with euonymous is scale, but the spraying with dormant oil would definitely kill that.  I would absolutely check to see if the plant seems to be drying out, or if it seems to be standing in water, and then the other thing that you could check would be to spray the plant with NEEM which will kill insects, mites and fungus and that would kill anything else (like spider mites) that might be causing the problem.  However, if you check the water level, and NEEM doesn't seem to change anything, you could just have a bad plant, or the plant isn't happy in its current location and I would definitely move it.  Sorry I am unable to be more precise, but I hope this information helps you.  Good luck, Melissa