Shrubs Problems

Last fall, we planted a staggered row of arborvitae along the road as a natural fence line about 4 to 6 feet from the road. The trees are 10 to 12 feet tall and seem to be doing well, except for the side facing the road. Sometime ago, you mentioned the salt on the roads during the winter posing a problem. The brown and yellow 'leaves' have been slowly dropping and the lower three to four feet along the roadside are becoming somewhat bare. I now know that they'll have to be protected against this in the future, but until then, is there anything I can do to bring back the greenery?

We had a nursery plant 15 arborvitae trees in May 2003. We mulched them and then watered them about once a month or less or more depending on rainfall. A number of the branches turned a rusty color. Eventually 6 of the trees died. The nursery replaced them this past spring and the same thing has happened.

I planted several arborvitaes this spring. I water regularly and they seemed to be doing fine until this fall. Now they all seem to be turning brown in the center. It is just the inner needles along the trunk. Should I water more, less or spray something?

I planted about 25 four feet tall emerald Arborvitae last summer. When I planted them, I was concerned about getting them too close to the road and subject to road salt. They looked great all last year. This spring, they are pretty brown and dry. How can I revive them and prevent this in future years?

I live in Salem Oregon. Last year I bought 6 Emerald Green arborvitae and planted them each in 5 gallon black plastic nursery pots. I used good soil and compost. They are lined up along the edge of my patio, facing west. The patio has an overhang, and there is a large tree to the south that is near the patio. The arborvitae get sun all day once the sun is overhead. This year, they look healthy, with new growth on the tips. Problem: the tops are flopping over to one side, toward the west. Why is this? Should I turn the pots around to get the tops to go straight? Is it because I have them in pots? (I can't put them in the ground- I live in a condo and we can't plant trees or shrubs).

We have an azalea that needs help. It has very little foliage and many of the leaves it does produce are brown. How can we restore it to its former beauty? We live about 1 mile from the ocean in California, but we don’t know if that’s part of our plant’s troubles.

My boxwood hedge has quite a few brown leaves. It started this fall and seems to be continuing as the winter progresses. Are my plants dying?

We have columnar buckthorn planted along our property line. These shrubs have been dying over the last few years. The leaves curl and dry.

I have a burning bush in my yard that isn’t growing so well. Is there any thing I can do to help it along?

We have a burning bush that doesn't "burn" (turn red) in the fall. It is otherwise healthy and growing in a sheltered southern exposure.

Two years ago I planted two clematis and one burning bush. The plants have not grown much. In fact the burning bush has very few leaves and they turned red early this year.

Our St. Mary, Ohio winter has been extremely mild this year. I do not trim my butterfly bush back until early spring. The problem is, it has produced new leaves that grew, wilted and died this winter.  This has happened about 3 times. It now has another batch of new leaves on. Should do anything to help it survive this winter?

I have three caryopteris plants along the back of a planting bed next to my house in southeast Wisconsin. They were planted in 2003 and grew much faster and bigger than everything else in the planting. Can I spray Roundup on the little plants coming up or will that kill the original plants too? Also, is it too late in the season to trim the big plants? I love the flowers in late summer, but I feel like the plants are out of control!

A strange orange growth appeared on several branches of my evergreen for two weeks last spring. It was about the size of a golf ball before it shriveled away. Do you know what it is?

I purchased several Summersweet over the Memorial Day weekend. Unfortunately, the 3 bushes are not doing very well. I planted them in heavy to part shade. I fertilized but they are not responding.

I need help in finding out how to diagnose and treat what appears to be a disease or pest problem in my landscape planting. I have three creeping cotoneasters in a small Asian garden in my front yard. One of the three cotoneasters is showing quite a bit of die-back. Several branches have crispy, reddish brown leaves that appear to be dying. At this point the other two plants do not seem to be affected. If this one dies it will ruin my landscape if I replace it with a new much smaller cotoneaster.

I have a row of pyramidal arborvitaes.  The one next to the telephone pole died.  Is there something I can treat the soil with to neutralize the creosote used on the telephone pole that may have leached into the soil?  I would like to plant another one to fill in this gap.

I’ve had this dwarf Alberta spruce for over two decades. One year, it sprouted a new shoot from the top. What caused this unusual growth?

It seems that all of my pine trees, including Ponderosa and Mugo, have been invaded by a small pumpkin orange worm that bores into the tip of the new shoot of each branch. They generally show up in late spring and kill all the new growth on the trees, which sometimes can be up to six inches. Is there anything I can spray on the trees that will get rid of these worms?

We bought a spindle tree 3-4 yrs ago. When we bought it the bush had orange fruit on it. Last year it had some petite little flowers and we thought for sure that by fall we would have the attractive fruit but to no avail. The tree is situated on the northwest corner of the garage and actually gets good sunlight and water. Any ideas why we are not getting the fruit? Last year we did spray for some black tiny worms.

We planted a hydrangea in several years ago. For the past two years it has developed buds but only a few ever open. We had a forsythia in the same place that never really flowered well. Should we add something to the soil?

My forsythia, lilacs and bridal wreath spirea each had a few blooms this fall. Will this kill the plant?

I planted a forsythia several years ago and it has yet to bloom. How can I get my plant to bloom?

My forsythia has yet to bloom after many years of waiting. How can I get this shrub to unfurl its bright-yellow flowers in my Woodstock, Ontario garden.

How do I permanently get rid of forsythia? I've tried digging it, burning it, and weed killer. It still comes back.

I cut my forsythia back almost to ground level about four years ago. It has grown back to a good height but has failed to bloom. Maybe one or two blossoms and that's it! It used to bloom really great each spring before we cut it back. I pruned it in fall was that the problem? Any suggestions as to how I could get it to bloom again?

I have a 7-year-old male and female holly bushes planted next to each other that always have white flowers and red berries in the fall. This year, there were no blooms or berries. What do you think happened?

I have a honeysuckle bush with powdery mildew. It is in full sun. What do I do? It was like this last year also.

The leaves of my honeysuckle started out fine this season. Then the leaves started turning black. Some leaves are totally black. Is my plant dying?

Why is the bark coming off my old honeysuckle bush?

We have two mature (10 years old or older) Honeysuckle plants that were doing very well up to the spring of 2000. When they developed some disease that causes the leaves to turn brown, curl up and die.

Is there anything one can do to stop the 'spread' of hydrangea roots. We have an area where they 'popped' up about 5-6 years ago on the side of our driveway. They have grown like wildfire…too much so. I tried pulling them, but to no avail.

I received a pink flowering hydrangea that has not bloomed in the past two years. I read somewhere that some hydrangeas have fertile and others infertile flowers, is this the problem?

I have two Nikko blue hydrangeas. They are 3 feet tall with beautiful leaves and only a few flowers. I cut them way back each spring and use acidifying fertilizer.

My 4-foot hydrangea hasn’t bloomed since I bought it. As instructed, I cut the plant back in fall when the leaves and stem are yellow. What can I do to make it bloom?

Looking out my front window yesterday I noticed that rabbits had recently done considerable damage to my oak leaf hydrangeas chewing the branches down to approximately a universal one-foot length. Will they survive? Last year we planted a serviceberry tree, lacecap hydrangea, rose of Sharon and blue muffin arrowwood viburnum. Do I have to worry about the rabbits also feasting on these?

I bought two Endless Summer Hydrangeas last year and they bloomed all summer with large beautiful blue flowers. This year I had large beautiful leaves and no flowers. I added Miracid to them hoping that would help them bloom, but it didn’t. They get morning sun until about 1:30 pm in the afternoon. How can I get them to bloom next year?

The flowers of my hydrangea are no longer blue but pink. What does this plant need?

A couple of years ago I received a potted hydrangea as a gift. I planted it outdoors in my garden in partial sun. Ever since then, I have not had any blooms.

I planted Japanese kerria shrubs several years ago. They were doing fine until last summer. The leaves were rusty brown and this spring the stems were dead. A few new shoots did sprout this season. We did not water the plants last year but did start watering our landscape this summer. Are the plants dead?

My lilac is having problems. There are holes along the edges of the leaves that look like someone went through with a hole punch, they're all nearly perfect. I didn't see any little critters.

I have what I believe are Japanese Lilacs. The previous owners of our home planted them and they don’t look so good. The insides are bare and I am wondering if I cut them down if they will grow back? Any suggestions on what I can try? They smell beautiful!

My six lilacs bloomed profusely for a couple of years but lately I haven’t seen a single blossom. I haven’t pruned the branches, and they get plenty of potassium fertilizer and water. How can I coax these beauties into flowering again?

Our lilac gets very few leaves, and the flowers are very small. The bush is about 11 years old. The people who owned the house before us covered the soil around the bush with rocks. Should we remove the rocks and work up the soil?

I purchased a lilac bush two years ago. The first spring it had a few blossoms and this year it didn't have any. The plant is growing in 50% sun and has grown 2 feet in the past 2 years. How can I get it to flower?

I pruned my overgrown lilac last spring after flowering. It does not seem to be recovering. I have a few new stems shooting up from the base. Should I rip it out and buy a new plant?

We purchased a Mockorange bush about five years ago and it has only had flowers on it two years ago - and then it was only two or three flowers.

We have worms on our Mugo pine bush. They are eating all of the needles off. We had them last year and thought we had them under control, but they are back and more abundant than before.

I have three mugo pines that have been doing great. Last year they developed a frost like appearance. It looked pretty at first but I am afraid it is some type of scale insect.

I have a Center Glow ninebark bush that is going into its second year. It developed powdery mildew on some of the leaves. It was originally located on the south side of the house next to a retaining wall. I have since moved it more into the open. Is this enough to control the problem?

I just purchased and planted a purpleleaf sand cherry shrub about 3 weeks ago. It has been looking pretty good until this morning. It seems like all of the leaves have small holes in them and a few are starting to shrivel. Do you have any suggestions for treating the bush?

The rabbits ate the bark off the top branches of several of my bushes. Do you think we can save the plants? The bottom 12 to 18 inches is free from damage.

I have had chicken wire around my 2-year-old burning bushes to prevent the bunnies from eating them. This winter, because the snow was so high, they were able to get to the branches and a lot of the bark is stripped off. Should I cut off the damaged branches or leave them?

We bought a rhododendron last year.  We covered it with a rose cone for the winter.  When I removed the cone in spring the leaves were falling off and the buds looked dead.  If I cut back the bush, will it come back this summer?  Or normally do you leave it in a pot and bring it in-doors over the winter?

I have a pink Rose of Sharon bush that is 4 years old. It buds fully, but then the blooms fail to open. What is the problem? My white rose of Sharon opens just fine.

We used fish emulsion late in the summer on our Rose of Sharon. It is covered with buds now in fall that have brown spots. Will it be alright or should I prune them all off? Will the plants survive our winter?

I planted an althea bush (Hibiscus syriacus) a year ago. It flowered great that year. In fall I pruned it back. It grew 2 feet but only bloomed on the tips of the branches.

The spireas on the west side of our house have always looked good until 2 years ago. Since then the plants are spindly, the leaves are yellowish green and there are no flowers. Can they be saved?

Now that the snow has melted, I see that moles or mice have stripped the bark on my crab trees and yellow twig dogwood. They've eaten all the way around the tree up to about 12" high. Is there anything I can do to help the trees?

I have a sumac plant that was very hardy the first couple of years. Now it has very sparse growth on the branches and about 30% of the leaves have started to turn yellow with spots and fall off.

I have a Japanese tree peony with eight inch diameter silky white single and double flowers.  Are Japanese tree peonies suppose to die back? Mine die back to the ground every year. I thought it was suppose to be a tree. Am I mistaken?

I have a variegated weigela with beautiful growth and blooms, but something seems to be choking it. I think it's a parasite because it has no roots. The orange growth wraps itself around the plant like a vine, but it doesn't have leaves, just white pinhead berries. I have tried several sprays on it, but nothing seems to work. I was advised to destroy the plant, soil and container altogether, but I'm reluctant to do so.