Bluebars:

I am sorry to say that the trees certainly look to me like they have been poisoned. How and with what? I have no idea. The first suspect would be some weed control lawn chemicals--a strong appplication of those chemicals will poison a Norway spruce tree. And, one must understand that the roots of Norway spruce trees usually extend far beyond the extent of the crown of the tree--in older trees sometimes as much as 50 feet or more.

Other poisoning possibilities? Of course gasoline getting into the soil will do it, but of course I would doubt that you could have done something like that.

Another possibilitiy, one that I have seen people do once in a while from simple misunderstanding, is placing ashes in some quantity around a tree. Wood ashes can have value as a fertilizer, but if too much put around a tree, the rain can wash a toxic chemical into the soil that can kill trees. I have seen this a number of times. I have also seen people use charcoal brickettes as a kind of ground cover around trees, with the same result.

Salt?

What to do now? There is not much you can do. The only thing I can think of would be to really, really irrigate the trees to try to wash away whatever poison is in the ground. Fertilizing them would just make the problem worse, but perhaps a slow release organic fertilizer would not do much harm.

The tree in the last picture looks to me like it is done. Maybe the others can recover. They might look ugly for a few years, but if they do survive, they could look good again in a few years.

Sorry,
-Spruce

Oh my. How sad.

I too suspect lawn chemicals, as in weed killers. How do you manage weeds in and around the trees? If with a weed killer, what product?

This is so upsetting. We work so hard to keep the lawn and gardens nice. In the gardens, I pull weeds by hand regularly. On the lawn, we have always used Ortho Weed B Gon, and always as directed. Possibly, conditions following application were not optimal for the product to work as expected (heat & lack of rain for a few days). It did quite a number on the lawn, too (as in large dead areas), but we never suspected it could kill our trees! Interesting also, is that the trees looked healthy on the back side (the steep slope on the back side is not treated, and mowed less frequently). We re-seeded the dead parts in the lawn yesterday, and we expect some rain today & tomorrow.
Ortho has a guarantee - "mail proof of purchase to obtain a full refund of your purchase price." Otherwise, buyer assumes all risk.

bluebars:

This is so sad. I am sorry. Perhaps it is possible to give a level of application of this weed control product that most trees can tolerate while still killing weeds in a lawn. I would never take the risk. Also, I do believe that Norway spruce are more susceptible to poisoning from this product than some other kinds of trees. Norway spruce is one of my absolute favorite trees, and one of its virtues is its very high disease and insect resistance in most parts of the country. These trees are very tough, and also have wonderful drought resistance. But this susceptibility to weed control chemicals is a weak point. I often see some poor looking trees that are weakened if not completely killed by these chemicals. Needless to say, I hate them. The chemicals are designed to kill most everything except grass. Trees, in this regard, are "weeds." Most trees can survive light applications of these chemicals because they are so big and strong, but their basic susceptibility to the chemicals is the same as the weeds. I won't use them around any trees because it has negative effects no matter how light the application.

Before we moved here to the Winchester area we lived in Arlington, VA. At the back of our property there we had the most wonderful line of NS trees--especially wonderful in the variation in appearance (growth form, foliage, etc) from tree to tree. Two years ago we went back to see how the old house was doing. The owner invited us in to see the renovations, etc. Out the back I saw all our NS trees dead or dying. All the weeds in that part of the lawn were gone, but also the trees, that were not only beautiful in themselves, but also a wonderful screen blocking the view from the houses behind. Awful!

I must admit that I have a different attitude about lawns than most people. Weeds in a lawn dont really bother me, unless there is some kind that completely takes over and then doesnÂt provide a good ground cover. I really love dandelions, etc. and others that produce nice flowers at different times of the year. My attitude is one that was held for many years in this country. If you ever go to Monticello (Jefferson"s home) in VA and take the garden tour, you will probably be told about how people felt about lawns in those days and how the variety of plants that mixed in with the grasses were thought to be a plus. One of the "weeds" that grew in lawns at that time gave a wonderful fragrance when stepped on.

I wish my view of lawns were more common. I have tried to talk to my friends about allowing more variety in their lawns and to stop using these chemicals, but I am sorry to say I donÂt think in all the years I have been doing this that I have made a single convert. There are some people I have met who agree with me, but I have never changed any minds.

What to do? Two possible solutions. First, one can place mulch around the trees. Because the roots can extend so far, this may not be practical in most situations. Perhaps mulch closer to the tree, and then some kind of ground-cover plant extending further out or a flower garden, maybe.

For the lawn--if the weeds get too bad, kill the old lawn with all the weeds, etc--perhaps with Roundup or something that is active on the foliage and not in the ground, and then replant with a kind of seed guaranteed to be weed seed free. Weeds will eventually come back, however. Perhaps for a long time they can be controlled in areas near trees by hand weeding them out.

If it is a choice between the trees and the grass--I choose the trees every time.

--Spruce

But......products like the OP used-Ortho Weed B Gone-are amine formulations of phenoxy herbicides, and as such, not volatile. It would require the grossest of misapplication, I think, to have caused this problem, and there is nothing in the OPs' writing to suggest that. I'm not ruling out what you are saying, Spruce. Maybe NS are hyper-sensitive to these materials, I don't know. Never heard that before either.

I too think many go overboard with their lawns, but being in the business I'm in, I must report that the extremely widespread use of phenoxy herbicides argues against their being frequent troublemakers to trees. One final example, our municipal golf course. Nobody uses more herbicides than golf courses, and yet, ours also has some of the nicest NS trees in town-lots of them.

Is there any hard evidence of NS's higher susceptibility to such chems?

+oM

Tom:

I have nothing to report except specific observations like the one I described at my old house in Arlington, and the report here, which does seem suspicious. I certainly don't have any scientific data that can be said to positively say that some herbicide is responsible.

The trees in question here certainly look like they were poisoned, and the owner reports that a herbicide was used. I will continue to be careful until I can get some very strong assurances that some chemical is absolutely harmless.

--Spruce

Update - We watered the area for several hours last weekend, and again yesterday for several hours, hoping to try to wash away any residual chemical, as Spruceman suggested. As of today, we don't see a lot of additional browning, but before, the damage was progressing very fast. Maybe there is still hope of saving at least 2 of the 3 trees.
Looking at the other side of these trees, on the hillside without lawn treatment, those same trees are still green and look healthy.
Look again at my first picture above. You can see what the WeedBGon, used properly, did to our previously lush green lawn. Over 10 years using that product, we never had this problem.
Also note that the professionals we paid big $$ could not diagnose our tree problem, but they did propose a $$K plan to treat it.
IMHO, the GardenWeb forum members are worth more.
BlueBars

This is just strange. If by heavy watering, you've halted the advance of the problem, that's great. But I don't think it means we've identified the culprit.

It feels odd for me to be defending broadleaf herbicides here. I don't particularly care for them and use them to a minimum on my home lawn-at most, once per year in late summer or fall, when they are most effective. But, these same types of materials were used for years as over-the-top applications in conifer plantations right here in National Forests in Wisconsin. I was opposed to that activity due to a too-great possibility of groundwater contamination and things of that nature. But, as a means of releasing these conifers from being overrun by aspen, etc., they were undoubtedly effective. Hence, I'm disinclined to believe that one rather moderate, and by all I can tell, careful application to a lawn caused the tree trouble. Now, if it turns out that NS IS especially sensitive to these chems, I will have learned a valuable bit of info. I am still open to anyone who can site any such related research.

+oM

We will keep an eye on the Norways, and update the post in another week or so. There are no insects or apparant disease. The dead spots in the lawn never happened before either. Sadly, we can reseed the lawn, but not the trees.
BlueBars

Tom:

One problem may be that it is difficult for the average person to regulate the application. Those lawn spreaders, at least the ones I have used, don't seem to make it easy to really control the application very well.

BlueBars; I am happy that the browning has, at least for the time, seem to have stopped. I am not sure if you should continue to irrigate the trees--to be on the safe side, I would. When the soil dries out, it could resume. You don't want to keep the trees constantly flooded, but if they are on a slope and are in relatively well-drained soils, it will be hard to cause any problems with too much water. I would continue to irrigate the trees, at least from time to time, this fall, and then again next spring and summer.

Again, Tom: I don't really know anything about these chemicals, but I have seen the effects of at least one or two weed control chemicals persist for a considerable period. Maybe this is because they can stay in the soil for a long time, or maybe once they get into a tree, they can stay and do damage for a while. Maybe making sure a tree really has adequate water--or more than "adequate," can help a tree fight the effects.

Yes, I admit this is all speculation. Just one more example--one that has hurt me. In the nearby town of Oakland MD there was a very old neglected house on a similarly neglected lot. There is/a line of NS trees on one side of the lot. The house was town down, the lot which was mostly weeds is now wonderful grass. The trees, which I always walked an extra block to enjoy--towering lush trees--now look like they will die--all of them. Was any chemical used? Don't know, but I am suspicious.

Oh, one more thing I can report, but I can't remember well enough who, exactly, I talked to, to go back and try to get more info. I had called someone in the MD dept of Natural Resources to talk about NS trees--specifically some contenders for the MD state champion tree. I can't remember the exact context of the conversation but he said that one of the contenders was recently killed by some weed control chemical applied to the lawn around the tree. What chemical? I have no idea--sorry.

--Spruce