A Gardeners Forum Forums Gardening Reference Gardening in 2006 leland cypress utrning brown

hello all,

i have four relatively small (about 4 feet tall) leland cypress trees as a screen in my yard. 2 of the 4 trees are turning brown/yellowish all over. I think it is root rot of some kind based on my research...but we haven't had any rain in 2 months until two days ago (ernesto). i watered them every other day or so before that, and they have been fine until about a few weeks ago, and since then they have been steadily losing their green color. I have very heavy clay soil with poor drainage that i ammended when they were planted. no sign of pests on them either. i'm a little baffled.

any ideas/thoughts? thanks!

Brown or gold entirely inside and out, or mainly just the inner foliage?

entirely inside and out. my husband claims that this happened last year as well, and the trees bounced back, but i am still worried.

That would be very odd to have happen two years in a row.

One year, not too surprising. Two, very strange.

There must be a good explanation.

Do they get any run-off of water from an area that might have had herbicides?

Actually yes, I live about half a mile form the beach in a falt swampy area with little to no drainage, so who knows what is the ground water.

???? I am stumped.

Here is another way to evaluate the scene.

Is there anything large growing there already, that is doing well?

Established trees? Shrubs?

Claire, I have a friend who planted over two hundred Lelands a couple of years ago here in Va. and he had the same problem crop up. He lost at least a third of his trees and it took about two to three years for the damage to finally stop. He had an extension agent come out and look at them and he stated that they had a fungus that destroyed their roots and went from tree to tree. He did not remember what the name of the fungus was, and was told that there really was not much he could do by then to stop the infection, other than remove the infected trees. The fungus seems to have gone into remission or just went away as he has not lost anymore trees, but if the conditions are right, I am sure it could come back. He lost a lot of money to that fungus, I'll tell ya.

I actually took a closer look today, and it seems that the inner part of the trees are turning brown while the outer folliage is a yellowish green, which still looks sick. it is some kind of disease or fungus, not sure how to treat it though. thanks for your help though, just looks like they may die before fall is over.

It sounds like a symptom that's shared by trees sitting in saturated soil.