I have seen a lot of Leyland cypress trees around town with patches of wheat-colored fronds. I assumed it was heat stress. Is that what the canker causes?

I have always admired the deep color of Leylands, but have not planted any myself just because of the risk of disease. I put in a Japanese cedar instead. I'm not big on the look of a solid row of trees anyway. I prefer a broken up mixed border of trees and bushes or fence or anything else instead of a row of the same trees like that.

(Wish I could remember how to spell esparillia, LOL)

LC makes a nice hedge, but only temporarily. You can plant it for a few years while the better plants mature. This year, the drought has really taken it's toll on these plants, proving that you're still better off with natives that evolved in this climate.

I like cedars, the garden variety , grow wherever the birds poop out the seeds kind. Catch them under a foot tall and they are easy to transplant into a staggered row. The berries attract the waxwings and robins when it's really wintry cold. Only problem is the occasional ice storm that will bend a cedar over. Then they need to be roped and staked.

If I had been the original owner of my home, I never would have planted the line of Lelands as the privacy screen behind my house. Unfortunately, they are there and 15 years old, so will be hard to takeout/replace if need be. I have some canker damage which I am starting to cut out where I can reach, but thankfully only a few of them look near dead, luckily towards the end of the line. Finding something to fill in the big holes will be a problem. There is a secondary line of ligurstrums in front of the lelands but they are only about 3 ft tall now. I wish they had planted hollies instead of Lelands originally!

The cryptomeria in my area are also showing signs of the canker and fungus.

tooslim: Ligustrums in the Carolinas? What a bad idea! I realize you didn't plant them, but ligustrums are so invasive in the southeast.

You can start adding some wax myrtles and hollies here and there as openings occur. Ending up with a mixed border would be more attractive and less susceptible to wholesale disease issues.

1sst....Oh please don't tell us that. I thought crypto were immune to it.

Since I first posted, that long row of Leylands is more brown than green. Without adequate water to keep them healthy there's no way they can survive.
It's so sad.

1sst...is it possible that it's bagworms on the crypto and not cypress canker?

These are disease-prone trees...and over planted. Kind of like the bradford pear of evergreens.

I've seen this brown patches w/ the Japanese Cryptomeria too though.

dottie,

It could be bagworms. I did not look close. The Cryptomeria are lining an entrance to a subdivision down the street from me. I did a search on Cryptomeria canker and it does return some articles.

It makes me sick to see any of these trees die. I do not think people realize what it is on the Leylands.I am seeing the die back on 30 and 40 year old trees.

I have found two areas of branch die back on my trees and cut the limbs out and coated the cut with a sealer.

I looked online, and read that leylands could get a disease called Cercaspora. I have ten lelands that are not growing fast at all. I have noticed that they have yellow needles on the inner part of the tree, and the needles fall off when you touch them. I have watered quite a bit; about an inch of water a week and used TreeTone. There definitley is new growth. I am afraid though that the Leylands have a fungus or disease. One is already completely rust colored. What is this?

cypress canker. That rust colored one ought to be hacked out and disposed of.
Whenever you have or suspect a disease or fungus in your plants and the plant is obviously dead/dying..pull it and put it in the trash for disposal. Don't keep it for mulch or you spread the disease.
Leylands are quite hardy and I think we tend to baby them with too much water. In clay soils that's not good..they can drown pretty quickly.
The rusty one you have may have had some hidden damage or disease and drowned from the extra water we give new transplants.

I'll never plant another Leyland. We had a row of 6 that the builder used to screen our corner lot. During the 4 years we lived in that house they were nothing but trouble. They don't like it dry, but they rot if they get too wet. The bugs love them. They are nearly impossible to revive once they start to fail-we ended up having to replace two of the 6 in the row with large expensive ones so the row would have uniform height. They are a pretty and fast growing variety bit way too much trouble IMO.