Bay trees - are mine beyond help?

becki.comber

Hello! I am a novice gardener but I love my 2 bay trees. I’ve had them a couple of years but since we had loads of snow in March, the trees have gone from bad to worse. I checked for root rot and then repotted them, but this is how they look now ... 
is there anything that can be done to help them? I feel like the far left one is perhaps salvageable as there are little suckers growing. Any advice will be GREATLY received. 

Lyn

As they’re no good like that, dead leaves don’t recover, you may want to cut the whole lot down to about 2 or 3 inches  about the soil, they may well shoot out from the bottom if you keep them watered. I did that some years ago, they were fine, you’d have to start the ‘lollypop’ look again or just leave them as little shrubs, which I think look better. 

Dovefromabove

Or you can remove some of the shoots with a heel and make heeled cuttings from them ... that's how I grew my bay tree .... a friend  grew three together and plaited the stems ... very ornamental and perfect for the garden of the stately home where she worked. 

Singing Gardener

Mine looked like that a few years ago and I assumed it was dead so bought a pot of something labelled "kitchen bay" from the local garden centre. When I got home I discovered that this was in fact 18 separate bay plants so potted them all up separately.

A whole year later (the following spring) the original bay produced a whole lot of new leaves and has since gone from strength to strength!

I now have a lot of bay trees....

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BenDover

Hi - don't wish to sound rude, but you should take out the weeds from the pot the Acer is in.  Being in a pot, it is already restricted to water and feed, so having weeds will compete and reduce the amount available to the Acer.  Plus, it looks tidier.  Not saying your garden looks untidy, of course....