Arborvitae: just damaged, or is it dead?

[Mark Bornfeld]

I planted a row of 6-foot emerald green arborvitae (thuja occidentalis 'smaragd') in my back yard about four months ago (May 2005), and have been careful about regular watering since then. After a one-week vacation, I returned to my home to find one of the trees with totally yellowed and brown foliage (no remaining green). The other trees (immediately adjacent-- presumably with the same environmental conditions) show slight signs of yellowing, but are on the whole faring much better than the tree in question.

I'm located in Brooklyn, New York (zone 7), which has had a hotter than average summer, with very little rain-- I would say drought conditions.

Should I assume that the tree is just suffering heat stress and is dormant and will recover, or should I assume the worst and simply buy a new tree?

Thanks in advance!

Mark

[sherwindu]

Hi Mark, I was waiting for someone else to pipe up, but nobody is responding. I have had a similar problem with an Emerald Green Arborvitae. I had two planted on either of my entranceway on the West side of my house. These replaced some 20 year plus old Red Cedars, which I pulled out because of Apple Cedar Rust problems on my neighboring apple trees. I went through a few years of replacing dead Arborvitae alternately, and now one seems to be stable, but the newest one died this year. The surrounding plants are healthy, and the trees were watered and fertilized, as needed. The nursery that sold me the trees keeps replacing them, but I think they have given up. I have been told by another nursery man that Emerald Green is not a strong variety, and I should try the Techny variety. You may want to try the same thing.

Sherwin D.

Mark Bornfeld wrote:

[Me]

[iSuspectFoulPlay]

Mark, I'm east of you on LI. I planted a dozen and a half of them last year around May as well... No problems but I did anticipate a few losses since these were Home Depot plants.

I used plenty of peat moss, compost and the native soil to make an ideal planting mixture to compensate for the fact that the potted Arborvites had what I felt very small rootballs.

I placed a soaker hose (Well, 4 as I had 18 plants) weaved in and out around each plant on every day for 2 hours. Approx 3" of mulch topped it all off. Didn't lose a single plant, yet...

I have seen people plant rows and fences and screens with 20, 50 even

100 Arborvite and suddenly lose a couple after a year or 2. If you got yours at the big orange box, be sure to choose the ones that are just coming off the delivery truck.