Arborvitae Care For Fallen Needles

12 years ago

I moved into a house about 1.5 years ago that has about 6 Arborvitae of which variety I'm unaware. While cleaning the vinyl fence around my back yard I happened to brush up against one of the trees and noticed a bunch of needles fell out onto the mulch below. In the past I've had other types of evergreens like, pine trees, where you can always find a bunch of needles on the ground under the tree to rake up. Upon further investigation when I pushed back some of the branches I found that the inner needles had fallen off though they just seem to get stuck inside the tree's network of branches thus never actually fall out the bottom of the tree. I've never seen any needles in the surrounding mulch. The trees look great from a distance but looking at the uploaded pictures #2 you can see when you spread the branches apart all the dead needles just clogged in there. Picture #3 show that when cleaning then out by hand reveals what looks like good branches to me. Picture #1 shows just how many needles were pulled out by hand in a very small section maybe 3ft x 4ft.

Should I be cleaning them out by hand or just leaving them in there. Any help is appreciated.

Featured Answer

HU-105133991

4 years ago

I use my hose with a tight spray to clean out the dead build up. Start at the top pulling the branches out and knock the dead stuff out. It will fall to the bottom onto the ground. This also gives the tree a good soak for spring. The dead needles make a good mulch to turn into the soil of other beds.

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Comments (9)

definitee
Original Author
12 years ago
Picture 3
definitee
Original Author
12 years ago
Picture 1
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outback63 Dennison
12 years ago
Perfectly normal. Inner branches can't support foliage when no sun light is available because they were replace with new outer growth.

In some cases it should be a yearly ritual to clean out dead inner growth so air can freely circulate through the plant to prevent fungus and other related diseases. Some pines with tight/thick foliage require this yearly.

Enjoy your plant it's in good health.

Dave
ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
12 years ago
what dave said ...

no EVERGREEN .. of any kind.. holds it needles/leaves forever ... and usually .. once the canopy expands to cover older needles.. they eventually fail ...

brilliant post... great history.. PIX!!! .. numbered at that .. your hand for scale ... blimey, spot on ...

i get very frustrated this time of year with posts along the lines of:

i dont know what it is.. i dont know what the problem is.. and i cant post a pic.. please help ... i will just die if this plant fails .... lol ...

ken

ps: if you take a walk in a conifer forest.. and look up ... all the trees are nudie.. where sunlight fails to create photosynthesis ... yours is just on a smaller scale
nurseryman33
12 years ago
Looks like Emerald (Smaragd) arborvitae to me.
definitee
Original Author
12 years ago
Thanks everyone for your replies.

The inner needles are indeed falling they're just not falling to the bottom. They seems to just collect in big bunches throughout.

From picture number 1 you can see the vinyl fence in the background which is 6 ft tall. These trees are about 8-10ft tall each so I have a lot of cleanout ahead of me. I doubt the previous owners did any of that.

Again thanks for your help.
shereejo125
4 years ago
Me too!
Rosanna Vanderhoeven
4 years ago
Thanks for your post. Same issue plus previous owner has tied up the inner branches with wires and zip ties and not sure what to do about them because they are forcing the trees to lean in unnatural ways.