Where do you live? I'm in zone 9b in the SF Bay Area and my barberries are just starting to bud. And there is big difference among cultivars; some haven't started at all, some are further along. As long as there is green (yellow) inside, they are alive.

I'm in Oklahoma city, zone 7b. Yeah, my green barberries are budding, just not the red ones yet. Temps have just started to stay consistently warm, so I'll wait it out and see what happens. They are greenish on the inside, so that's a plus.

I think that you are absolutely fine. Don't worry.

Derek,are you saying that they never leafed out at all last year after dropping their leaves in May 2016?

all you can do is wait and see ...

based on the pic provided ... i suspect some severe shock at planting.. or last summer ...

these are pretty hard to kill.. in toto ... but if the damage was severe.. it may come back from down low ... closer to the root zone ..

just give it a month or 3 ... if you have the patience.. if not.. just get rid of them ... how many barberries does one person need .. lol ...

ken

I assume with "red" barberries, these are Japanese barberries, Berberis thunbergii. IME, while moderately drought tolerant once established, newly planted shrubs are very sensitive to water issues and should not be allowed to dry out. They will often shed all their foliage once that happens.......sometimes they will releaf quickly and other times not. Depends a lot on just how dry they got.

Mine have only just started to bud out as well so I think you may be premature in assuming that these two won't also. No guarantees given their initial hardship but these are pretty tough plants and I think chances are good. As ken said, you need to have a bit of patience.

When we planted them the leaves seemed to kind of shrivel and fall off within the first month. A few weeks later..prob mid June, they started to bud and within another couple weeks they lost their leaves again. I kept them hydrated throughout the summer...didn't over water...prob gave the root area a good soaking once a week, sometimes twice depending on how hot it got. I can take a picture here in a bit, but it just looks like a leafless bushes, lol.

A close up could show us if they are still alive.

Ok, first pic is the one of the bushes in question, second pic one of the bushes that I moved back here about a month ago.

Well it's still not a close up but enlarging the picture I don't see live looking buds.

Here's a couple closeups. I trimmed back some of the branches over the weekend, and they are most definitely green on the inside. Guess I'll wait and see what happens.

I also see no live buds. And there is a fair amount of dead wood there as well. It is that very pale, gray looking stems.

I've zoomed in again on the close ups. The buds look dead to me. And the stems are dehydrated. They shouldn't have those ridges. Sorry. But there's no harm in leaving them alone for a while. Who knows. Maybe they'll revive from the roots.

Despite your stating that you kept them hydrated the first year it really sounds like they kept drying out.

If they're dried out, why would they still be green/yellow on the inside of the branches?

Just curious, never really dealt with these bushes much. I mean the leaves literally shriveled and dropped within a week and a half of planting them.

Prob gonna give it until the end of April and see if there is any signs of life.

"If they're dried out, why would they still be green/yellow on the inside of the branches?"

Unlike many plants, barberries have quite a lot of a bright yellow to orange pigment in the small twigs and inner bark, enough that they get used for dye. I imagine that the color remains for a while after the plant is dead.

If it turns out that they are dead, as someone who grew up with barberries in the yard, I would consider getting an alternate choice of shrub for a couple of reasons, both related to the thorns. 1.) Your kids won't be happy about having to fish toys like balls out of these shrubs, and any twigs mean thorns in bare or sandaled feet. 2.) The thorns tend to grab anything that blows around such as leaves and trash, so they need a fair amount of tidying, stout gloves advised.

It's a good chance the dehydrated stems are dead. To me, that tells the story better than dead buds. Buds can resprout from hydrated stems and not so likely from dehydrated stems.

So I pulled them up today, have some ideas on what's going to go in their place. The roots actually looked good...white-ish for the most part. Went ahead and put them in pots and trimmed the stems way back. Don't want to completely give up on them just yet. Lol

There are 1 or two leaves on mine, still not budding out yet. Give it some more time. If they don't come back by this time next year, pull them up. I only watered mine several times after I transplanted it. No signs of stress, at all. Did you water excessively? Maybe fertilizer?