Diagnosis or thoughts on slowly dying bines?

First year Cascades. They've stopped growing vertically, but even when they were, I noticed the lower leaves slowly yellowing. Over the past 2 weeks, and really over the past few days, it has been very hot here and the leaves are drying to a crisp after yellowing from the outside in. They're watered, but not overly so. I fertilized once with some liquid Miracle Grow in a cut down proportion. No pests visible. Virus of some sort?

Imgur album.

Sounds like what normally happens to mine. The older leaves near the bottom start yellowing as the season progresses. As long as the top portion of the vines look good, I wouldn't worry about it. Might be something else though, tough call without actually seeing them. Hop On!

B-Hoppy said:

Might be something else though, tough call without actually seeing them. Hop On!

Click to expand...

There is a link to an Imgur album I put together at the bottom of my post that has up-close and bigger area pictures, if that's what you mean. (I was lazy and didn't post them individually in the post...)

Sorry, I didn't see the link. It doesn't look like what I was thinking it might be, and there doesn't look like anything totally obvious going on. The leaf cupping in the second picture could possibly be a sign of too much water. On first year rhizomes, once they're up and running, I normally wait a week or so and if we get no rain - water very slowly for a long duration to make sure the soil is moistened real deep. Use a soaker or just crack the end of the nozzle so there's a very fine mist and let it go for a half hour or so. I generally try to let them go with no water until the leaves just barely start showing the slightest bit of wilt - that's just me though. Your soil makeup will affect your watering patterns. Deep watering as opposed to shallow frequent watering will help develop deeper stronger roots during establishment. If it's not a water problem it could have something to do with the soil which I like to amend to at least a foot or more with lots of organic matter for starting rhizomes. Diagnosing plant problems can be very difficult due to lots and lots of variables. Sorry we couldn't nail something down.