[Arid_gardener] Question from Home-Hort WWW page

[jeff.johnston at dfbls.az.gov]

Jeff
85304
jeff.johnston at dfbls.az.gov

I bought a house about a year ago with 2 older bottle brush trees.  They both looked healthy last spring and early summer but since mid summer the leaves have started turning yellow.  The strange thing is that on both trees the side facing west has most of the yellow leaves and the side facing east has mostly greener leaves.  I fertilized the trees 3 times last spring/ summer (April, June, August) and watered deeply about once a week when it was hot and twice a month when not as hot.  I have now cut back to watering deeply only once a month when it hasn't rained, and nothing if it has rained.  I applied liquid chelated iron to the soil following the directions twice last fall and sprayed the leaves with chelated iron several times but none of this has had an effect.  Still about 65% of the leaves on both trees are yellowing and about 35% are green (east facing side of tree).  Nothing I have done has seemed to have an effect at all.  Do you have any recommendations?