Hello, I bought some Green Giant Arborvitaes last winter. I live in Nashville, TN and it was during a weird week when it was warm every single day in December. About two weeks later we had an instant freeze where the temps shot down to 0F with a ton of snow and caused every Evergreen in the state to drop it's leaves or turn brown. I attached pics of how they looked when I first planted them, then a couple of weeks ago, and how they look now. I'm not sure if there is anything I can do to green them up again? The weather this year is also weird in that even though its Spring the temps are still in the 60s during the day and 40s at night. I check the soil and it's moist, I added some fertilizer but not sure how much got through the weed fabric. Any advice? Thanks
The parts of your trees that are brown will stay brown, but you could try cutting those parts off and see if new shoots take off. For any that are totally brown, they will not, so it would be better to get rid of them.
I agree with Teeters. It’s frustrating when a home owner goes to all the work and expense to plant a living screen only to run into complications. Maybe next time use a soaker hose on a timer for summer watering near each plant worked well in my garden. It looks like they could have dried out or too much water…at some point. The problem with arborvitae once they turn brown the dead plant material releases a gas and will encourage other branches to die. Also look for red spider mites. These tiny insects eventually kill the tree. It helps to remove the dead wood back at least 1” to good wood on each branch. Do not fertilize a sick plant . It also could be underground mice etc chewing on the roots. I have several planted around my garden and spider mites are a big problem here in hot summers . Usually once arborvitae’s are established they make a nice living wall for gardens. Good Luck.
Thanks for the reply. If I cut them off then they will forever be smaller than the other trees? Also do you mean cut them at the large stem, or just leave the middle "branch" and cut off the leaf parts?
They were perfectly green then the temps dropped from 70F to 0F overnight and turned them brown. This is the first Spring since then and a lot of them turned back green except for those two. I planted American Pillar Arbs on the other side of my house that turned black and they fully recovered to a bright glowing green color.
So you think I should just not do anything and wait and see? I was planning on spraying some liquid iron on roots.
Nursing your trees is a choice and liquid iron may help. Usually if leaves are yellow it’s due to lack of iron. Low iron in soil is called iron chlorosis, the foliage fades and may turn pale green or yellow. The process may be caused by a high pH level to alkaline or too much calcium in the soil or drainage problems. Soil that drains poorly can sap iron from the soil, and soil that drains too quickly . Good Luck.
I think the only thing to do is remove all of the brown parts entirely. In my experience they will not regrow. It will be pot luck then with the remaining green part, but with some good care they may be successful.
Thanks to you guys I was more determined to look for replacements by going to four different nurseries and found the perfect ones. I already planted them and they are only slightly bigger than the ones I have now so they blend in nicely.
That is a good idea to replace them and hopefully these new trees will do better for you . Here is some info I ran across might be helpful. https://www.statesmanjournal.com/st...die-back-brown-patches-arborvitaes/1077282001
