If the plants are near the house foundation, be sure you give them plenty of acid (Hollytone or the like). the lime in the cement foundation can leach out and affect these plants. Ours have been in the ground several years. The first year I saw some yellowing of leaves and the Hollytone turned them around. Now, though, we have the same condition you're describing. One of the bushes in a line of 4 is badly affected. The others seem pretty good. I'll try the Hollytone(tho I do feed them at least once a year anyway) but am wondering if we're dealing with something else here.

sorry, I just remembered it is the lack of iron that makes the leafs yellow. they also do need the acid feeding. But the leaching of lime from a house foundation causes the iron deficiency(sp?). so look for a product that provides iron and/or acid.

Gary

Here in NY we've had lots of winterburn. Lousy winter. When there is a real warm spell in winter, you might consider a light watering. Hollytone should help. Japanese Holly are pretty tough. Good luck.

Good morning... My japanese Sky Pencil holly suffered bad winterburn here in CT. They are continer planted and I did nothing to preserve them last fall. As soon as I noticed they went bad, I added hollytone to the pots. One of the 3 is showing new growth on the bottom 6+ inches, but the other 2 are still struggling. Is there anything else I can do? Should I prune them back (all of them are about 4' tall) or perhaps plant them in the ground? Any advice would be appreciated!

Babygerk

Last fall I built a couple of raised beds in front of my house in which I placed ten Japanese Holly shrubs. I built the retaining walls of the beds with concrete blocks on a concrete foundation. I filled the beds with screened topsoil brought in from a local (Raleigh, NC) supplier. The holly plants seemed to be doing very well until a few weeks ago when I noticed the leaves on one of the shrubs were turning brown and curling. This symptom is now becoming apparent on shrubs adjacent to the worst affected plant.

The bed that contains the sick plants is pretty shallow and therefore, of my two beds, is probably the most affected by lime leached from the new concrete and mortar from the bed walls. I will try the acid and iron treatment recommended in earlier postings.

I intend to post results of the treatment in a future posting.