i doubt a cold spring had anything to do with any of this.. especially based on the pix provided ...

i suspect winter is what did it ...

based on the pix.. i suspect there was winter kill to snow level ... and that is why there are leaves down low ...

as to your tolerance to look at these ugly things ... that is the limit ... even if they do leaf out minimally at height.. do you think they are going to look much better ...

how about some pix???

ken

Here are some pictures of the shrubs. The first picture shows one of the azaleas and the second picture shows the barberry bush in the foreground and the burning bush in the background. We actually have another reddish/purple barberry bush on the opposite (south) side of the house that looks the same. The green ones we have seem fine and leafed out nicely.

You could be right, but I don't know if snow had much to do with the leaves not coming out because we hardly had much snow all winter. We did have a cold March and April with freezing temperatures after brief warm spells. This whole spring has been unusually cold. We even had temps down into the low 40's earlier this week, and I had to turn on the furnace.

I just wonder if the upper branches of these shrubs will ever leaf out again. We have some arbs that look rusty and dead on their tops, too.

You most likely had late frosts that damaged the top growth after it was trying to come out of dormancy. Perhaps that, combined with the two previous winters of below average cold, was just too much for it. Are azaleas common in your region?

Idk about your area but here in MA we dealt with an unusually mild winter, esp late Feb where we had temps in 60's! But then in late March early April we had freezing temps for like 2 weeks straight along w multiple snow fall days w 6" or more each time. If that is the case w your area as well if assume that is the culprit

but I don't know if snow had much to do with the leaves not coming out because we hardly had much snow all winter.

and above: late Feb where we had temps in 60's!

==>>> i have more damage and death ... when there is no snow cover.. than i do when everything is buried ...

again.. its when the soil warms during a sunny warm day .... and refreezes again that night ... over and over and over again ... a lot of stuff just cant take it ...

get it dormant.. keep it dormant .. .and stuff is fine.. in and out of dormancy.. and sooner or later.. some just die ...

the pix above.. the dead ones dead ..

the one with sprouts down low.. jsut prune out all the dead stuff ... with no insult to the root system [hopefully].. regrowth can be rather fast .. but not one season ...

ken

Thanks all. Our winter was similar to what Nessdizzle described. Luckily, we were spared the heavy snowfall that Massachusetts received in late March-early April. Azaleas do not grow very well in this area. I have a couple well-established ones, and we usually get some flowers on them and plenty of leaves. As Dave mentioned, the cold spring we had this season on top of two extremely cold winters has probably had a damaging affect on them. I am going to be patient and leave them alone for now. There seem to be a lot of little leaves slowly making their way up the branches.

As for the barberry bushes, I decided to heavily prune the branches without leaves on them this afternoon. They were quite an eyesore, so I cut them both down to where there is new growth.

As luck would have it, the UPS guy stopped by our house at the time. I have a humongous pile of tree branches out by the road from some tree trimming work I did last weekend, and he jokingly made a comment about how what I was doing looked like a lot of fun. I explained that I was cutting out the branches without leaves on the barberry bush, and we both complained about how tough the weather has been on landscape shrubs. He told me he used to work at Greenscapes, and that it would likely be a profitable year for garden centers. He took a look at the cuts I made to the barberry bush and said that the green at the end of the cuts indicates that the branches are still alive and well. He said that new branches should sprout leaves on them soon once we get into some consistently warm weather. I figure if the shrubs do not fill out, I will just replace them. Thanks again for your help, all.

You're lucky to be able to grow barberry, they're banned here in MA because of being pretty invasive. I long to be able to grow them because they're so striking color wise.

As others have said, prune back to live wood and they will resprout. I think it was probably less an issue of absolute hardiness of your plants, than the buds started growing in the early March warmth and then were hit by the late hard freezes that killed the swelling buds. This combination damaged many plants in the northeast, including a lot of the commercial peach crop. There were also some rounds of warmth followed by cold in February in some areas.

You could use this opportunity to do some changing out of plants that are less ornamental if you want to. Barberry, burning bush, and privet are all invasive (seeding into wild areas, often miles away via birds) in the northeast and there are a fair number of easy but more ornamental shrubs. Look at one of the smaller ninebark (Physocarpus) such as Tiny Wine instead of barberry or instead of privet something like panicle hydrangea (Hydrangea paniculata) ranging size from quite small like Bobo to fairly large like Limelight or Quickfire.