Last summer I noticed this damage on the bark of my weeping blue atlas. I would appreciate it if someone could tell me if this is due to a fungus, too much sun or maybe inadequate watering, etc. Also, I was thinking of trying to seal the bark to try to help it recover but there seems to be a lot of conflicting information online on this subject.

hi

where are you

how long has it been there ... and any other pertinent facts that might help ...

seems to be budding out fine.. why do you think its a problem.. that you need to fix??

NEVER do anything contrary to ma nature.. and ALL goos you can slather on are such ...

if you can remove those stubs on the last pic. that would be great ... i cant understand the white stuff on the first pic ...

a pic of the whole might not hurt either ..

ken

Ken,

I am in Greenville SC. This will be the third summer since planting. I have attached a picture of the whole for a better perspective. The first photo above (with white sap seeping from the bark) is actually about halfway down the tree while the second photo above (with blackened bark) is of the top of the tree. The stubs are the tips of old dried out branches that broke off last fall. I can trim them down to the bark but I have been hesitant to do so as I didn't want to make this situation worse. In short, I am trying to figure out what caused this so I can stop it and hopefully avoid more damage. I am also trying to determine if there is anything I should do to help it heal / survive / thrive.

Thanks for the help!

this is not a large transplant. NOT A LARGE TRANSPLANT. does it need to be said again?

sunscald, though not likely due to the common culprit, winter damage. Likely due to summer sun "burning" the bark, not unlike what I feel like now, after a few warm, sunny days after a winter of long sleeves.

The dead stubs can be cleaned up, if it were me, I'd see what the wood under the wound looks like, but if you're not sure what you're looking at/doing, I'd leave it alone unless the bark flakes off easily.

Second shot looks like severe sun damage. It seems tree wrap might help. Foliage is very thin so tree started with or has developed some general problem, that is probably the basis for the two occurrences shown here. Maybe lingering effects of significant cutting back of roots during transplanting.

Not that it would necessarily have anything to do with these issues but tree also looks planted too deep. If this appearance is due only to the bark mulch being brought right up to it that can be pulled back. If instead the crown is also buried too deeply by soil beneath the mulch level then the soil should be carefully dug away. If that leaves the specimen in a hole that is likely to refill itself over time then the cedar may have to be lifted and set at the desired depth.

This is the kind of situation where the optimum approach would be to hire a consultant who can inspect the entire tree in person - including pulling the mulch and soil back, to look at the top (or more) of the roots and vicinity - and interview you about details of the history of the purchasing and planting of it.

Thanks all for the feedback. My gut told me that at least the top of the tree was sun damaged but I have never seen this occur before.

ken_adrian: I bought the two trees at a nursery close to my home, drove them here in my truck and planted them myself. The white stuff in the first photo is sap seeping out of the bark. My landscape guy just put out mulch and covered the root flare despite my request that he keep the mulch off the tree. I will pull that back and take a photo in the next day or so.

waynedanielson: I cleaned up the dead stubs. The bark does not flake off easily so I left it alone.

Embothrium: I will investigate tree wrap options.

Not a large transplant at all, for a Cedrus. I have been fortunate to have been the recipient of two enormous (one was about 7' x 12', the other about 10' x 6') Cedrus that were in inconvenient places and in each case I was offered the tree if I could come and get it. I took a couple of guys and a trailer and in each case we dug them out with a minimum of roots (one was planted on top of road base and the root ball was about 3" thick!), brought them back here, planted and staked them. Neither ever had a single problem. Cedrus take to transplantation about as easily as any hard wood I know. They are native to areas with low summer humidity though, and that doesn't describe Greenville! Check out Tom Cox and John Ruter's excellent book, 'Landscaping with Conifers and Ginkgo for the Southeast.' They discuss cedars in depth, suggesting that C. atlantica performs best in zones 6 and 7 and is not recommended south of 8a. In acid soil they benefit from a liberal application of lime at planting. It is apparently slower growing the South than the other Cedrus species. This is just to put your tree in context. You want to get as many of the cultural requirements as nearly right as possible.

Conifers are soft woods, of course. We have lots of Cedrus in my area of sometimes quite acidic soils. Including large numbers of skyline specimens.

yes I should have said 'woody plant'.

Yes I notice when I visit family in VA outside of Washington DC that they are often planted at gas stations!