how about a close up ...

are you watering when they need it... or by that schedule???

how do you know if the schedule is proper ...

how bad was winter???'

is the brown on the south side of the plants ...

did you amend the planting hole... what is your soil .. clay???

ball and burlap.. or pots?? .. bigboxstore???

were they severely root bound on planting.. what if anything did you do about it????

did you fertilize them??? .. in the hole????

is your lawn sprayed???? .. the damage looks too consistent across the front of the trees at grass level .???

is there landscape fabric under the stone???

so many questions.. so little time ...

ken

I am having perhaps similar problem, Ken, and the answer is "no" to all of your posed questions. My tree is at least 20 years old and has had no previous problems. Also, did not have any kind of damage. Does not sit anywhere near road - has some protection from wind through the house and other plantings. The damage did not show up until end of April and an entire branch (vertical) suddenly started turning brown.

i dont think spring will ever come to my MI ... and i have some in the same circs ... and am waiting to see how they respond.. when it actually gets warm enough for growth ...

nina ... when the injury OCCURRED... as compared to when it SHOWED ... is always the mystery ... in all my years... i have a very hard time.. differentiating such ... the problem being..

for us in the great white north.. being that winter is a sort of suspended animation ... and we dont know if the insult was from severe drought last summer... a short very cold fall w/o proper hardening off ... a very harsh winter ... etc ...

but for sure.. it did not happen inside a few weeks in spring ... in my estimate anyway ... when the weather was moderating ... versus extreme ...

all we can do is wait ... give them time.. and react later ...

ken

ps nina ... cut the brown branch out when you are sure .... it will fill back in [might take a year or two ] ... presuming there isnt something else going on ... but disease limited to one branch.. would be a bit wonky ...

Hi Ken,

Thanks so much for helping me diagnose the problem with our arborvitae trees. Sorry for the delay in my response. I have attached a close-up picture.

We have been watering the trees about twice a week - a gallon or two of water each time. It seemed to be an average CO winter - it snowed on and off. The snow would not last more than a day or two with out melting off. It got below freezing overnight but it would warm up during the day - average days in the 40s and it would get down to 20 or below at night. It seems like the browning started early Spring. It's clay soil, and when we planted them, we dug a hole two times the size of the root ball and mixed fertilized gardening soil in with the clay soil. There is some browning on the side of the plants that face the fence (the south side), but not as much. We are unsure if they were root-bound upon planting - how can you tell? The lawn is not sprayed where the trees are growing. We did not use landscape fabric underneath the stone.

Do you think it's a watering issue? Based on our research, it seems they are either getting too much water (which seems unlikely), not enough water (which might be the case), or some kind of fungus/disease is causing the problem. More recently, we have been watering them more in the past week to see if that helps, yet we aren't seeing a change - or does it take several days for them to green up if that's the problem?

What do you advise we do?

Thanks!!

Can anyone offer any advice about how to bring our arborvitae trees back to life?

I first posted about this issue 23 days ago and the trees still look the same.

They don't appear to be getting worse (which is good!), but we have had several rains since my first post and the trees do not appear to be greening up.

Is it possible they have a disease?

Thanks for any help anyone can offer!

i am reading your frustration level... i dont know what you want us to tell you ...

of my 650 conifers ... at least 50 have winter damage .. some of them arbs like yours ...

a half dozen are outright dead ... though no arbs ...

and all i can do.. is wait and see if and how they recover ...

and counting days would only irritate me.. more than answer the question ...

though the black stuff is a disease... its nothing i ever treated ... and therefore.. i dont even recall what it is .....

these plants are extremely stressed ... and covering them in a chemical ... will not help ...

in terms of tree years... trees that can grow decades ... your 23 days is insignificant ...

if you cant stand to look at them ... get rid of them ...

ken

ps: most of my dead ones.. have gone all brown ... so arent arent dead ...

Ken -- I recently had the same problem with 65 arborvitae trees. 7' newly planted. They were doing great during the rainy season. We hit a drought during summer and some leaves on the arborvitae started turning black and brown. I called MSU Horticultural Center. They had a chart of which showed how much water certain trees need. They said that even the chart called for far too little water. So I removed my soaker hose and saturated each tree at the trunk for about 10 minutes each. Thoroughly saturating them. The next day they looked like new trees. I had cut out all the black and brown areas, but I caught this early on and new buds instantly appeared. They greened up over night. These trees need thorough saturation about every 3 days during dry hot season, and will even need saturation less often but will need during rest of 1st season. And again same cycle second season.

These trees need thorough saturation about every 3 days during dry hot season

==>>> well .. obviously yours needed more ... you could have dug some holes.. and found out how dry it was under them ...

i also note.. you planted huge 7 footers ...

my caution is simply.. you found out.. what your sized trees needed in your soil.. at the size planted ... it MIGHT be completely different for other peeps.. in their soil.. with their plants ... etc ...

BTW .. were you using an engineered irrigation line ..... or the carpy recycled tire weep hose???

ken

probably crappy one. I bought it at Menards :) $10.00 per 50 footer. But...every nursery or tree farm I contacted said you cannot overwater an arborvitae. I know that's figuratively speaking, but it tells me water, water, water. I was watering about 2 hours every couple days with soaker hose. This was not enough. They needed saturation. Just wanted to let you know, because everywhere I called, no one could tell me why, or what was causing blackening of leaves. Have a great 4th!!!