Dead conifers?
dazmaul
Posts: 3
Hi,
I have 4 conifers (i think) in my garden which seem to be part dead. I'm not sure if thrre is anything that can be done to save them or whether i need to get rid of them and if so whats the best way?
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dazmaul
Posts: 3
Posts
Conifers don't recover from what you have there. I'd get rid of them. Saw them off as close to the base as possible. They don't regrow from a stump either
In the sticks near Peterborough
Me too, though that's mainly cos there are very few conifers I like in a garden setting as much as the fact that they don't recover
Ummm ..errrr.. ..No Verdun
Like grass is now, conifers were a fad in the 70/80s that we're still suffering from today. Conifers are great in their natural settings, as long as they're not deliberately grown as mono-cultures. I love Scots Pine in the wild, but unless I lived in a really big garden - say Kew - I wouldn't have a conifer.Personal preference of course
Then there's the legacy. People see this cute little conifer in the garden centre, plant it and 20 yrs later have a ruddy great monster blocking out all their neighbours light.
It's when people plant them by the front door QR and twenty years later they're wondering why they're sitting in their front room with the lights on all day! Why they don't just take them out and put something else in I'll never understand. They do suck the life out of the surrounding ground as well which creates a problem. In our wet climate up here it's less of a problem though.
They're fine in the right place but when they're bought at a foot high and the label says '1m x1m after five years' the buyer stops reading - and they think it magically stops growing!
Taxus is a different beast entirely from conifer anyway. Can't really beat it for hedging -especially in a big plot- and of course it's ideal for shaping into something exciting. Verd - have you got any nice topiarised yew?
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
Not a conifer lover, but the needle drop does acidify the soil around it, limiting what can grow under neath. I'd remove it , thoroughly enrich the soil, & replace with a flowering (if poss) deciduous bush/tree. Or even something like a honeysuckle or grapevine...you've got a nice strong fence there to put up vine eyes & wires for training!
I have just had a large old juniper bush/ tree removed. It was looking really sick and one damp day I discovered what appeared to be quantities of orange jelly clinging to its branches. Horrifying! I identified Cedar apple rust, an alarming fungus that affects cedars/ junipers and apples/ hawthorns. It relies on both sets of species for its life cycle. . (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gymnosporangium_juniperi-virginianaeThis probably explained why the hawthorns and newly planted apple trees nearby were not thriving. The aforementioned fashion for conifers probably introduced hundreds of hosts for this damaging disease. Apparently juniper-type conifers should not be planted anywhere near apple orchards. who knew?
I would probably remove the conifers to be honest, as has been suggested in other posts. I have two the same (Chamaecyparis I think) and the bottoms were rough, so i just cut them back to the trunk, the tops were fine.
I do think conifers get a bad deal, probably due to Leylandii etc. I have loads of specimen conifers in my garden in pots, such as Japanese Larch, Korean Fir, White Pine, Hinoki Cypress and Mugo pine. I do a bit of bonsai so things like chinese juniper and pine make great material, so I have them at different stages of development.
I do think conifers still have a place in our gardens and provide good backdrops for other plants.