Emerald Arborvitae turning brown/grey from the inside

9 years ago

Hi,

I planted 10 arborvitae last spring in April and they all look very sad. Here are some pictures. I live in the suburbs north of Baltimore, MD, zone 7. I have a good number of mature trees in and around the lawn. Is there anything I can do to save them? Some of them look really far gone. The brief history of these is that we planted April 15, it rained A LOT in the couple weeks that followed the planting. Then Baltimore experienced a dry end of summer, so the water these saw was mostly as part of the lawn sprinkling during that time.

Here is a row of 5, higher elevation, not as badly affected as the other batch I have:

close-up of the one on the right, outside:

inside of the same one:

Close-up of the main color of the problem areas on the right side of the below. The worst affected arborvitae are primarily this color in the inside.

The second row of 5 is in a much worse condition. They are planted in a row, in a shadier spot, lower level (water from the lawn flows this way), with more trees close-by. Front side looks pretty good on most of them, but the back looks bad and the inside looks terrible. My husband already chopped out the worst of the stuff, so I don't have great pictures of it, but it's similar to the one above, just worse.

All 5 in a row:

Here is one of the worst affected ones, after pulling off most of the ugliest brown/grey stuff from the back and pulled apart to show the inside.

Is there any hope?

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Comments (5)

Jean
9 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
Sprinkler irrigation is NOT adequate for recently planted shrubs.

Likely the root balls went dry, in spite of the early rainfall and the later stingy irrigation.

Devise a way to put water directly into each rootball, even if you have to move a drizzling hose from tree to tree.

New woodies need a minimum of 2 years of supplemental water to establish a sturdy root system.

Only time will tell if your shrubs will survive, and thrive
billiewarrick
Original Author
9 years ago
Thanks, Jean. I thought maybe it was mold or something. My husband was awfully itchy after doing the yardwork. We will try to be more diligent and see if we can't revive them. Today we were able to do the old hose drizzle method. I'm hopeful :)
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ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
9 years ago
wouldnt be too hard.. to take a hand trowel ... and dig around 3 to 6 inches down ... in the root zone.. AND FIND OUT HOW MUCH MOISTURE IS IN THE GROUND ... and then changing the watering appropriately ...

ken
kimmq
9 years ago
Ken has a very good idea since a soil saturated with water (the early heavy spring rain could have done that) to just not enough soil moisture (lawn sprinkling) might be the problem but the only real way to know is to dig into the soil to see.

kimmq is kimmsr
ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
9 years ago
the grey part is probably dead.. i bet its all one piece.. if so.. cut it out.. as low as you can go ... the rest should fill in.. in a few years ...

it could be handling damage anywhere from the grower .. hauler.. store.. transport home.. etc ... and soaking them down with sprinklers lead to secondary issues .... these are conifer.. trees.. they really dont want wet leaves ... needles ....

if you have a warranty.. return it ...

ken