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marial1214

Dead Juniper ground cover

marial1214
16 years ago

We have juniper up and down both sides of the driveway. Recently in about 2 weeks time, one stretch of about 25 feet turned brown. The same thing at the neighbor's house about 300 feet down the street. Anybody know what could have caused it? I think it is about 10-15 yrs old.

Comments (5)

  • Pipersville_Carol
    16 years ago

    Argh, that's a shame.

    Such a large but localized die-out makes me suspect an accidental human cause. Has the driveway or nearby lawn been treated with chemicals? Could it be overspray from cleaning lawn furniture or washing a car? Was a clear plastic tarp left to dry on the groundcover, unintentionally baking it to death?

    Seems like a tough year for juniper. I've got brown spots and some die out on mine. It's usually tough as nails, but not this year.

  • ladyslppr
    16 years ago

    Did you use deicer (salt) on the driveway? I think this is often the cause of dead plants next to driveways or sidewalks. I don't know why this past winter would be worse than previous winters.

  • eibren
    16 years ago

    I'd be willing to bet that you and your neighbor are on a slight hill, and that the Junipers on the lower side of your two driveways are the ones that died, right?

    Even though the driveways themselves are level, runoff would then tend to go downhill, bringing with it anything toxic placed on the driveway, and also keeping the ground moister than on the uphill side. That could have been enough to cause winter kill after the unusually warm/cold Spring....

    If you are in the country, though, and one side of each of your driveways is near a county road, they could also have been hit by herbicide from a county truck.

  • marial1214
    Original Author
    16 years ago

    No. The driveway is some 200 feet long and the dead stretch is on the upper side. The other side is also now dying. It looks like it's dying in some type of system-first one side then the other. The guy down the street has a small hill in his yard and it was covered with juniper and daffodils which bloomed normally this season. He ripped his dead juniper out already. We're waiting on that project.

    There are no chemicals here. We didnt even do the weed and feed on our lawn, yet, for the season.

    We do have a guy who cuts our lawn every week and also plows the driveway. I told him he hit the main root with his plow and he said that's not possible cuz the whole stretch is dead and there are several main roots becuase there are several juniper plants in that stretch. He said they only live a certain amount of years. Well I find it strange that this is the year they all (at the same time) decided to die. I am not buying his reasoning, especially when the guy down the street had the same problem.

    As I drive along the roads I look at people's properties and I've seem some other juniper ground covers that are totally brown too.

  • jenny_in_se_pa
    16 years ago

    One of my sisters who lives in Delaware County recently replaced a couple of hers too and she has them on a slope along her driveway. There is something about certain cultivars of creeping junipers that seems to leave them susceptible to browning out and dying after winter. I am wondering if perhaps they might lose alot of surface roots during a ground freeze and if they don't get a chance to recoup those roots in time (if not fully established), this causes a decline and finally a pretty quick death.