one can NOT see spider mights without a jewelers loop ... of which.. you dont mention

as to recovery.. w/o a pic ... its hard to give you an answer ...

ken

So those little red things crawling on the white paper are not spider mites and what about those webs? Then there's the guy from the pest company that pointed them out to me. I would think that if someone has experience dealing with these, they could offer an educated answer. The damage is to about 1/4 of the entire plant and a couple entire limbs are now bare. What would be the fate of the entire limb? Will it just need to be cut off?

This post was edited by arkansas_girl on Tue, Jul 1, 14 at 13:16

Thank you, I was just wanting a general idea of how junipers "operate" so to speak. I know if a broad leaf plant loses its leaves, they can sometimes come right back. I wasn't sure about junipers but I figured they would not come back from being bald. Thanks for you answer, I will go ahead and cut the "dead" limbs out/off. I wanted to run this past someone with more knowledge of the plant than I have after trying to find google answers with no such luck.

you did not say.. you knew.. and used the paper trick .. i made a presumption .. forgive me ...

God help me.. lol ... and you are 100% sure they are juniper...

all to often peeps who drop in from the sky ... use all kinds of common names ... and we provide all kinds of answers.. and when a pic is finally posted.. it isnt a pine tree... and we have wasted a lot of time and effort ...

and finally ... are you in Arkansas.. or OH ..??? not that i think it matters .... but it might ...

what i believe you are asking.. is whether Js have dormant buds or not ... so that is you cut back ... will they rebud like trees might ... the general answer for conifers is no they dont ...

Js however are a bit more aggressive with resprouting.. but i wouldnt bet the farm on then doing such ...

cut back to any side branch that is unaffected ...

a pic will get you a full latin ID ... as there are many types of Js ... as well as better suggestions as to how to prune them ...

ken

ps: i would also suggest you look into juniper tip blight ... which has caused me to destroy many of the Js in my collection just north of the MI/OH border .. as i always wonder.. what came first.. the bug or the disease stressed plant ...

It appears to be a Saybrook Gold by looking at the photos. I am in Ohio now. I will look into the tip blight. Thanks! I'm not really a huge fan of them, I am very allergic to the sting of them. I am going to have to wear long sleeves for sure! :)

You're not allergic to them.

It's called "juniper dermatitis" but is not a disease or allergy. Instead, it's from being scratched from the sharp needles.

The "cure" is to wear long sleeves and gloves while working in & around them.

I'm not allergic to them? Then why do I break out in a rash from them...gah! Sorry but I have to disagree wholeheartedly to that comment! I am smart enough to wear gloves and sleeves, thank you very much! It's hard to keep them completely off of me when I have to crawl under them to cut out dead limbs though.

You can disagree all you want but jean is correct - it is not an allergy but a sensitivity or skin irritation to chemical compounds in the plants. Contact with the plant is actually toxic to some degree for certain individuals. Contact dermatitis is a pretty common phenomena and junipers often top the list of suspect plants in the garden. Many folks experience varying degrees of sensitivity but with plants like poison ivy or poison oak, the sensitivity is pretty uniform :-))

Here is a link that might be useful: plants that cause contact dermatitis