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Blue spruce looking rather sad

pottering girlpottering girl Posts: 236
in Problem solving
I planted a mature blue spruce in my new garden in November 2017.  Looked beautiful last year.  Some needles went brown and dropped off but the tree was full of new blue growth.  Looking at it now it is looking a lot less full, the new growth from last year is still a lovely colour but there are a lot of brown needles.  I have clay soil.  I have dug small hole to see whether it is a lack of water but the soil is not dry at 6 inches deep.  Does anyone know how I can give it a kick back into life.  

Posts

  • pottering girlpottering girl Posts: 236
    no, thankfully not.  How do I post photo?
  • Paul B3Paul B3 Posts: 3,154
    There appears to be some confusion here .......is it Spruce (Picea) or Cedar (Cedrus) we are talking about ???
  • pottering girlpottering girl Posts: 236
    Hi, it is a picea.  Here it is (I hope)
  • pottering girlpottering girl Posts: 236
    Any ideas anyone?
  • pottering girlpottering girl Posts: 236
    Thanks pf, I will take a look at the needles tomorrow to see if they have black dots on them.
  • Paul B3Paul B3 Posts: 3,154
    pansyface

    There is absolutely no need for any kind of apology regarding my question yesterday ; the confusion was in hindsight entirely mine !
    It is always a shame when people plant these beautiful conifers in good faith , only to see them disfigured irretrievably by these fungal problems .
    Hopefully for pottering girl her tree will be OK and it's a negative on infection .
    It is the norm for Picea to lose needles at this time of year , and the new blue growth can look stunning even though older shoots can appear somewhat scruffy .
    I can't really tell from the picture whether the whole tree is affected , but if it is mainly the lower branches , these can be carefully removed purely to improve appearance .
  • pottering girlpottering girl Posts: 236
    The needles don't look infected.  Just brown.  I have given a good feed and will hopefully see some nice new growth.  It just looks half the size it did when I got it.  
  • FairygirlFairygirl Posts: 55,117
    I think it's more likely that it's suffered from lack of water. 
    Bearing in mind that it was a mature plant that was put in, and the dry conditions last year, it could have struggled to maintain all the growth if it had got dried out at any point. 
    It's a place where beautiful isn't enough of a word....



    I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
  • pottering girlpottering girl Posts: 236
    Fg, new garden November 2017 and we watered continuously over the Summer last year and continued to check over Winter (what a year to have a new garden!!).   We made sure there was a very large hole for it because we have clay.  Hopefully it will pick up this year.   The good news is that the new growth from last year is top to bottom so no branches are being lost.  I do remember lots of needle shedding last year but it certainly didn't look like it does now.  I am sure the situation for it is good, it gets full sun from mid-day.  Thanks peeps
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