It is very much borderline hardy in your zone, so the damage you see may be indicative of more far-reaching concerns. Generally, winter damaged foliage on broadleaved evergreen shrubs can be pruned off once danger of cold weather is past and new growth begins. I'd wait to do anything until you start to see signs of new growth and then adjust your actions accordingly.....pruning off the most heavily damaged portions may be necessary. If new growth does not appear in a timely manner and more leaves continue to drop, these plants may have experienced irreparable damage.

Golly.......I'd ignore pretty much all of the previous post except the point about having patience :-) Which is pretty much exactly what I said.

Sorry Ken - I know you think I pick on you but you do tend to such massive hyperbole and it can be very confusing to those who don't realize it. And please stop with the "NEVER..EVER's" -- 'never' is a little bit too final and should be "it depends". And you know it!!

suggesting that anything said by someone but your wise self makes you intolerant ...

you would not make a good conversationalist ...

since there is usually nothing left to be said .. once you have prognosticated ...

pshaw ...

winter burn on a recent transplant has many causes ... some related to the stock.. some related to the weather.. and some related to the gardener ... i seem to think i covered a vast multitude of the possibilities ... and started a conversation to glean more facts about the situation ...

you offered only that it is borderline zonal ...

end of conversation ...

ken

I am getting patience is the key, wait and see if the stems bud out. I will read up more about trimming for growth and decide later in May.

The young evergreens were planted early spring last year (April 2010), the ground planted in is gardening soil we had dug out the clay about two feet down (a few years ago) and replaced with the gardening soil as it is a small garden filling in the four feet between the house and driveway. I used no peat, no ferts, no root stimulator, did water in some acid when some yellowing appeared in the hot summer. They were planted with root ball a bit above ground level kind of a mound. They were looking green up to late Jan. I admit I had not watered them since fall.

I did rack back the mulch yesterday to see if there was any thing obvious. Trunks look clean, no scales, no black or mushy stuff. Top of the root balls I think are good, no black/brown roots. Did see a few earthworms wiggling around in the garden soil, think that was a good sign.
I am not much of a gardener, just learning, I did not want to over love the shrubs and kill them off. Perhaps I did not do enough to give them a good start. I do however understand the basics of pH, amending and why.
As for the weather we had some wild temp swings these past couple of months.

Ok you kids play nice now...

Remember what Iron Belly Mays used to say - nearly any answer to a gardening question should begin with, "Well, that depends..."

Having said that - Of course its winter dessication, my Sky Pencils browned very nicely, and surprisingly enough, so did my inkberry holly, a much better adapted holly for the area.

If stems are green, wait, as we've said, and you should know in about 4 or 5 weeks what lived and what died.

brian

I am playing the waiting game on half a dozen sky pencil hollies to see if there are any signs of life. I got them in the fall of course at a huge discount and that was followed by a record breaking cold winter - one is showing signs of life - the others may be gonners. But I'll be giving them some more time to be sure.

Just want to thank all that responded, the clippers are still put away. I am seeing some budding and keeping my fingers crossed.

"I lightly fertilized and watered well to encourage a healthy root system."

"I used...no ferts..."

This is another one of those head-scratchers. It doesn't sound like over fertilization is likely to the the problem here, but, as Ken was trying to say, woody plants should ONLY be fertilized when a soil test, or possibly symptoms, indicate the need for some nutrient.

With the information provided, it's nearly impossible to know for sure what's causing the problem, but I would first suspect hardiness issues (especially with the time that has elapsed). 'Sky Pencil' is reported to be hardy to zone 7 by the National Arboretum and to zone 6 by many other sources. Of course, now days, only a few areas in the northern extreme of Missouri are zone 5. I guess the wait-and-see approach is your only reasonable option at this point.

Hmmmmm...here's for a NEVER (LOL)

I've got a Weigela shrub, Wine N Roses I think. After the initial flush of blooms, I trim, fertilize and get another flush of blooms later on. I think I read somewhere to do that...

Pieris like acid soil. I use acid fertilizer on this shrub every year, as my clay soil isn't acidic (I don't think so anyway). Azalea and Rhododendrons too, if we're classifying those as "shrubs". I suppose this would classify as a deficiency in my soil anyway, which contradicts the point I'm trying to make. Most other shrubs I don't fertilize, as a general rule.

I'm razzing. I don't know, I just do what everyone here tells me. :)

Too bad about the Sky Pencils. Adorable, and I wanted to add them to my landscape, but I was hesitant about the hardiness.

I used to use the anti-transpirants in the past, until everyone here told me otherwise. Kind of like the landscape fabric industry. Completely useless.

With evergreens, I think the most important is to make sure they get an ample supply of water mid-Nov as that will carry them through the winter months. At least that's how I was told to prepare my boxwood for the winter. That, and pine sprigs to protect from winter sun.

I'm rambling. Too much coffee today.

Good luck.

The hardiness issue as I am just north of Kansas City (zone 6a) I have searched several zips with a Kansas City address and they come up in zone 6. When I search my zip it reports as 5b, the National Arboretum map is hard to get a close up to see actual zoning. So I am borderline 5b-6a.

There are a ton of variables, equivalent to an essay or small book! I do have yellow heavy clay, tested the top layer (about two foot) with a non digital after a rainy day a few years ago. It registered between 8-8.5, which is why we dug it out and replaced with a garden/top soil. The shrubs are a holly which do like acidic soil.

Hindsight as Ken mentioned in his post on fertilizing, I might have used the acid spray (fertilizer) a bit late in the season. Since it did give the results that I had expected at the time, I really did nothing else. Besides the morning watering, using common sense, which was done until the first freeze.

The one variable was the weather temperature swings from this past winter. In February, we had a mild week then a week of 70 plus degree weather. During this time a very hardy juniper planted in the same bed, lost its purple winter coloration, it was a nice spring green. When another cold front blew in, it took a couple days to revert back to its dormancy color. Although the juniper looks rough now, I suspect it will recover as it has been in the ground for about 5 years and was planted in an expensive hole. I saw the "green" leaf drop from the sky pencils at that time as well.
As spring approaches I am seeing the damage rearing its ugly head, whether it is from summer heat, winter warm up and refreeze, my husbandry or lack of nutrients is unknown. Looking at them yesterday I think I am seeing the tiny flowers buds that appear in spring, still waiting on leaf buds.

I was planning on replacing the mulch, last year when it was new a ton of mushrooms appeared. Like mentioned, tons of variables and I do not have the experience to guess, test! I will have the soil fertility and pH tested, before doing much else. I am learning and do appreciate the posts as I read up on points well made, suggestions, and others knowledgeable experiences.

Right now the shrubs are sprouting new leaves where the others had dropped and at some of the tips. I did trim out some brown tips down to the green.

How hard of a trim can the shrubs take?

Do I wait to trim until the newer leaves are developed, like done with trees? Some leaves buds are over a quarter inch out while other branches only have tiny buds with almost no older developed leaves.

Or can a shrub be trimmed at any time?

planted last year??? .. yes???

i am glad it seems to be recovering..

now would you please consider leaving it alone for a year or two..

before you kill it with too much love????

it needs every single leaf .. to grow roots to get 'established' .... do NOT cut any off for 2 years ... and it sure did NOT help that its first set were damaged ...

i would not waste the time snipping the brown parts off every leaf ....

insure proper deep watering for this year.. and in drought next year ....

ken

Just wondering...does digging out clay soil and replacing with garden soil create a clay "bucket" that will hold water and cause problems? Or is going down 2 feet sufficient to prevent that? Could that be the cause of the mushrooms in the mulch?

Yes same shrubs as planted last year. OK so the shrubs do need every leaf like a tree. I know I should not trim a tree until all leaves have developed, I was thinking along the same lines for the shrubs as they had dropped a lot of leaves.

The trimming of brown tips was in reference to the branch tips not the leaves. Who in the world would have the time to trim each leaf? A few of the branches had tips browning and the browning seemed to be going down the branch, so trying to use common sense I trimmed only those individual branches down to the green. Those branches had new buds developing and now has buds at the trimmed tips.

As for a clay bucket yes, you can create a container like conditions. I planted shrubs with shallow root systems so I choose to stop at two foot. I think it depends on how deep you dig, on what you are planting and you need to make sure you follow the standard recommendation on mixing in native soil in the back fill. I used a garden soil that had clay in the mix already.

Plus the area dug out is about 11 ft long and width ranging from 21 inches to 5 ft, plus a smaller 2 ft wide 8 ft long area. Several of the shrubs are on a slight slope, although all were planted on a built up mounds. There should not be "container" conditions, there should be lots of room for excess water to flow away from the roots systems. We just got done with a rainy week and they are budding out like crazy right now.

A lot of thought went into planting them just not a lot of chemicals. I confess, I have loved shrubs to death before, one of the reasons I did so little when I planted these last year.

The garden area has been in place for 5 years and last year was the first time I had a mushroom explosion. Only things different was new shrubs and fresh mulch (which I remove and replace each year). I have searched the forum for info on mushroom blooms and mulch and have not found any similar experiences posted. So I replaced the last years mulch with a pine bark mulch this past weekend, I am hoping no mushroom explosion this year.

Due to last years experience I will do an acid feeding, just earlier in the season then last year.

They seem to be recovering however it is still a waiting game. I have read some problems will cause sudden death in late summer so I will post later this fall if they made it through the summer and so on, for anyone interested in these shrubs.

I reponded to this post in March and have been doing what Ken suggested with the pencil hollies - waiting and being patient. I also planted in the fall - bargain end of season plants that seemed to be doing okay until the bottom dropped out of the temperature. Two are showing signs of life - some fresh green leaves. I am not trinning anything off until it becomes very obvious that it's dead - just making sure they get water. They just started showing signs of life and I am in zone 7b. Fortunately they are at the very back of my flower bed against my oh so attractive chain link fence - I planted them for some height at the back. Right now the stuff in front of them is still taller so they're kind of hidden - it doesn't matter if they're ugly for a while.

just wanted to chime in on hardiness....

i have a sky pencil in good ol' zone 5 and it is pristine. go figure. it's planted in the ground, western exposure, no ferts, no wilt-pruf....no love from mama. LOL

it may decide to just give up the ghost one day but if it made it thru the ice storms and mega sub-zero of last winter, i think it can make it thru anything!!

fwiw...I've never fertilized anything in my yard and only have average soil...everything pretty much makes it.

only amendments i've tried are in fighting my alkaline soil by adding some sort of acid to rhodies/azaleas/pieris/you name it. regardless of my (half) consistent efforts...they have all gone to be w/ Jesus and i no longer try to plant acid-lovers lol

Linda, glad that your little fellas are pulling thru. i know the Spring anxiety of waiting for life and totally understand your desire to help them along! :)

I had two perfectly expensive sky pencils that have grown 7 feet tall. I have had them for 5 years or more. After this winter, the one on the NorthEast side (very protected) is all brown. Its companion is only 7 feet away and looks good. It is May in MArblehead, MA. I will try to be patient, but when I shake it, all the leaves fall off. It does not look good. Any advice would be wonderful. My other plants are heathy. It just was a very long winter. Thank you.

I am posting photos of my lovely sky pencils. I am not new at this, I have others that are healthy...

Came across this posting. Same situation w mine. In container all harsh winter. Thoughts?

Another view. Base branch stem green. Upper branches yellow.

You remove and replace the mulch every year? Why?
There is no need to do that. If you don't like the color of the aged mulch, just apply a cosmetic layer of new mulch on top of the old.
Or, do what I do, plant groundcovers in the mulch and give them a topdressing of compost once in awhile.
Your Sky Pencils suffered winter damage. They're going to suffer again some time in the future. Sure, they might live, but they're going to look like heck for a considerable time. I'd replace with something that can handle your climate without suffering such damage and be done with it.
Mike

Replace them. As mentioned, they will take a very long time to recover, if ever.
You could pot them up and place in a shady spot out of view for a while if it hurts to toss them out or give them a spot in the ground for recovery, out back.

Pull one out of the urn. Check the roots...pour a gallon of water in the urn and see if it drains properly...but most likely winter kill.
Mine recovered eventually but it took two years. It is in a grouping down by the garage and bbq for privacy. Not the front door.

See the answer in your other post about the Sky Pencils in urns.

Here is a link that might be useful: Sky Pencil Holly burn.