Above is the picture of the same Emerald green, which been damage on the tree trunk level. after the harsh winter we lost all the needles on the bottom. I'm not sure how to Prune this. what do you guys suggest? should I replace this or let it stay there grow slowly? if let it grow how long will it takes to grow everything back out again? if keeping, should I cut the dead branch out? do I cut the tip or remove the entire branch instead? any advice would be helpful. ( I have about 23 of these and about 4-5 of them are in this condition.)

I live in Queens , New York. I'm not sure about Voles, I never seen them around here. we do have a lot of squirrels, and there are few cats wondering around though. we had a horrible winter storm which causing the ice build up around shrub.

I forgot to mention, These were planted September of 2014, My guess is, roots were not settle and alone with the harsh winter may have caused this...

Do use use salt on that paved area and then shovel the snow around the trees? Any dogs in the area? If mine, I'd prune what is surely dead and wait another month to see what has life and then prune again.

tj

these are fine. Don;t remove them. they will recover.

I didn't use salt, but my neighbor did use salt on the other side of the green metal fence( you can see it on picture) but that shouldn't impact the trees right? they have concrete driveway. but no , we don't have dogs in my house or my neighbor, I don't think any by passer will walk their dogs into my driveway.

for the pruning part, I have no experience in that area do I cut the entire branch or only the dead foliage?

no dog????

planted last fall ... bigboxstore??? .. guaranteed???

yes.. replace them ...

were they severely rootbound.. and what did you do about it ... take some pix of the plants you PULL OUT ... and lets talk about it ... i bet you wont even need a shovel ...

how you planted them.. may have mattered ... what was the procedure?


ken

no I didn't purchase them from Bigboxstore, I got it through http://www.seedlingsrus.com/ the owner truck deliver to me. the owner show me how to plant these. it was deliver in a 3 gallon pot. In this case I shovel the soil out with a hole size a bit bigger than 3 gallon to fit root ball. and filled the empty with original soil. as you can see I cover the soil with Mulch right away and leaving the tree truck open for air.

I'm not sure about the root bound, but I can try to pull when I get back home , if it came out easy that may be the problem.

why do you think I should replace it? because of the look or tree is dying?

appreciate your help!

they just got snow burnt during winter. You see we all suffered these bouts of warming and freezing this year. when that happens portion of the plants will swell up in warming times and then when it freezes the cells will die. Freeze and warming cycles can damage plants. But your plant is fine. I'm just guessing the snow bank went up to the lower parts of the tree where it got affected. Trust me on this. Where the green parts are, it;s very lively. The slight yellowing just affected the tips but it's not spreading. The leaves beside it are very bright green. Looks good. When you start seeing more of a dull green colour and when you scrape the trunk and see a dull green or browning in the inner trunk then you can say the plant is dying. I guarantee you this is not the case. It just was a bit difficult of a winter but its recovering just fine. In due time, it will come back really nicely. The nice thing about emerald cedars they do fill in well. I have emerald cedars in my backyard. I know this.

The EXACT same thing happened to my trees. In our case it was rabbits feasting on the bottom of the trees. It was a harsh winter and food was scarce so they start eating whatever they can get at. I'm in the same boat as you - they look terrible but they're still alive and doing well at the top. I think i'm going to plant hostas at the bottom and hope they cover it up.
Let us know what you decided!