i thought GGs were known to be deer proof... so i dont know why you wrapped them ..

i dont think the wrapping has anything to do with the damage directly ...

i wonder if those wrapped didnt get as much water as others ..

how did you plant them.. how did you water.. how late into fall did you water??? ... give us all the facts ....

if you want us to go much further.. we need a pic or two ...

ken

Green Giants are not the same as other arborvitae species and they are indeed deer resistant - no need to wrap for winter protection,

Could the burlap have been too tight and bent or broken the foliage? Any heavy snowfalls that might have exacerbated this?

There could very well be other reasons causing this but more info is required. Photos would certainly help.

Green giants of my brother's neighbor along their driveway were stripped clean of almost all their foliage within the deers' reach. The next year and every winter since, they wrap them up to about eye level with a coarse plastic netting that lets light thru and that has protected them. So they are not deer-resistant if there are hungry deer around.

"Green giants of my brother's neighbor along their driveway were stripped clean of almost all their foliage within the deers' reach."

That is the exception rather than the rule. The Western red cedar parent of GG's, Thuja plicata, have a long history of disease, insect and rot resistance due to the very high levels of terpenes and essential oils. These also make them taste bad to deer and other browsing mammals.

But there is truth to the assumption that given lack of other, preferred fodder deer will eat anything if hungry enough

Thank you for everyone’s input so far. I watered them all by hand right up until the first frost. They were all planted by hand in September. I took care of them all the same which is why it is confusing to me, the only difference is the ones that I wrapped are brown and the ones I didn’t wrap and bright green and thriving. Here are a few pics of the biggest brown one.

This one was the largest/ most expensive, so I wrapped that. I also wrapped the ones in the more wooded area that I thought were susceptible to deer, and did not wrap those around the edges of the yard.