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Help! Evergreen screen looking sickly. (photos included)

GardenGuyZone6a

12 years ago

Hello all.

I have a tall screen of evergreens along the back property line. They are looking thin and off-color. I would love to rejuvenate them. I was thinking of putting down some Hollytone around the bases and watering it in, as well as the evergreen tree fert spikes. Anyone have experience with this?

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Comments (5)

pineresin
12 years ago
Looks like a mix of arborvitae (most) and juniper (e.g. just left of the slide in the 2nd pic).

The thin crown is normal for a mature juniper, so you can't do anything to thicken it up.

The arborvitae might benefit from some lawn removal and mulch in the area less than 3-4m from the foliage, and if the lawn in that area has been heavily used, then also some soil decompaction as well. That will give them the opportunity to grow better root systems that will support a denser crown.

Forget the hollytone and fertiliser spikes, they're just an expensive waste of money.

Resin
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rhizo_1 (North AL) zone 7
12 years ago
GardenGuy, there is no way anyone can diagnose what might be the problem with your plants, if anything...from the images. Conifers can be prey to many different pest problems, for example, but identification of such things would take a close-up examination, not a distant picture.

Tree spikes, by the way, are one of the worst ways to fertilize. If these plants could benefit from fertilization (and we don't know that), a simple top dressing with a good granular fertilizer is as good as anything. By 'good' I don't mean overloaded with Nitrogen. If you fertilize your lawn, by the way, you don't need to add anything more to the trees. Weed and Feed types of products can harm woody trees and shrubs, something to think about.
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About the only thing that I can think of (and it's aestetic not for screening) would be a Yew such as: Taxus x media 'Beanpole' or Taxus x media 'Flushing'. I think 'Flushing' will give you the most "screening" but you'll need to plant it fairly close to your shed: It basically should be planted 1 meter away. You 'know' you planted a tree that given time will fit that spot perfectly, in relation to the shed. What you're looking to do now is plant something that ultimately is going to crowd walking space between your shed and eventually your Serviceberry. That includes mowing. The positive aspect of a Yew is you can prune them any which way you want to, including down to bare-inner-wood and they will form new foliage. If it ever came to be that the cultivar 'Flushing' was 5 meters tall and one meter wide and you wanted to cut it down to 1 meter tall, you wouldn't do any damage to it. For me, your plan should've included an evergreen screen behind the serviceberry and the serviceberry being brought forward to give it room away from the screen. If you were to move the servicebery (now or anytime the ground is workable) that seems to be the common sense route and gives you the opportunity to do the job, correctly. Then you could plant, i.e., going from the shed to the left in the photo: (3) Thuja occidentalis 'Hetz Wintergreen' in a straight line and then begin to make an arc with a Picea glauca 'Pendula' then a Picea pungens 'Iseli Fastigiata' aka 'Fastigiata'. That's my opinion, anyways... Hetz Wintergreen first one 1 meter from your shed then on center every 1.5 meter. Picea glauca 'Pendula' 2.5 meters from 'Hetz Wintergreen' Picea pungens 'Iseli Fastigiata' 3.5-4.0 meters from P.g. 'Pendula' This for a screen. You can make adjustments with the two spruces if you want to give them room not to touch. Dax
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The Techny Arborvitae could be planted in a row as a screen or standalone as a specimen. Mine are planted kind of intermediate to this. I have them on one of my property borders amongst other plantings (I did plant 2 next to each other). Ive got emerald green arborvitae and green giants and this can be thought of as intermediate solution to screen(more than EG, less that GG, also dense foliage like EG). Foliage is dense, a darker green, and elegant if I must say so myself. Love the (3d) look of the foliage and I get two tones of color as well. The color is real nice. Though I havent, if I could do it again, I would plant one as a specimen tree in a second. Depending on how much space you have/what other selections you have in mind other selections may be more appropriate(in regards to planting it as a specimen tree, lets face it there are other more beautiful conifers, though this is beautiful as well). Just thought Id throw it out there since they dont get mentioned much on here and Im quite happy with mine.
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Hi robin98(NZ(9b)) thanks for your help! *I've had the plants for approximately 2 years. *I repotted them approximately 1-2 months ago. *Both were in terracotta pots, now just the larger one is. The smaller one is in a plastic pot now, there's been no change in either plant other than getting worse. *I water both when the top 2 inches are dry, I use my finger or a wood dowel to tell if the soil is damp, mainly my finger. If the top 2 inches are dry I water until soaked, with the water draining freely through the holes. I never let them sit in water for longer than maybe 30mins, after watering. *The build up was before I repotted, it looks like salt or water hardness. I removed them from those pots and placed them in fresh pots that had been disinfected prior to use. There's some build up since that time on the rim of the terracotta pot (can be seen slightly in photo below of the top of the pot) I'm still sad, but learning to cope with it! ;) Well, I'm trying to learn from this experience. Thank-you so much! I've included some newer photos, please feel free to ask more questions if necessary. I'm considering removing the large one from it's pot, to repot again, but into a smaller pot after I remove some roots. It smells from the top of the soil now, and although when I repotted previously there was no indication of rot I'm thinking this is either leaf disease of some type or root rot. I removed these leaves: Then this started: Here's a picture of the top of the pot: Thanks everyone in advance! Let's hope we can save these guys!
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ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
12 years ago
pshaw on fertilizing..

both lawns look like they are fertilized ... and given that those CONIFERs are twice as big below ground.. as above.. then they are getting enough of the lawn food.. PERIOD ...

the base problem.. with those conifers.. is that they are OLD ...

your basic premise.. restated is.. you want to make grandpa look like a 20 year old stud .. good luck with that.. lol .. there is nothing you can do in that regard ...

move the swingset over.. and plant 2 to 4 new conifers.. 5 feet into the lawn .. and when they get big enough.. figure out how to remove grandpa ... presuming the issue is hiding that white house behind ... in other words.. grow a new screen .. and then go with youth-in-asia on grandpa ...

ken
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GardenGuyZone6a
Original Author
12 years ago
Great advice guys!

I'm going to find an arborvitae that grows tall and fill in the thin spot, planting it forward 4-5 feet.

So the concensus is that Hollytone at the base wont do much?

What about that deep root feeding I hear about where they inject liquid fert about a foot or so down?
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ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
12 years ago
i said ===>>>>

both lawns look like they are fertilized ... and given that those CONIFERs are twice as big below ground.. as above.. then they are getting enough of the lawn food.. PERIOD ...

SO WHAT WILL HOLLYTONE ADD??? .. the lawn fert is like 10 times stronger than the hollycarp ...

ken
0

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