Help Fir trees Dying

mike19 · August 2014

Hi All, Last year I bought a house which had not been taken care of for over 20 years and completely overgrown. We cut back all the growth and used a wood chipper and left the mulch layered over the ground for the winter. In February I had the garden paved and a new lawn laid. I have 3 fir trees at the back in the lawn area. I am thinking after doing some research that when they laid the lawn 4-6 inches of top soil was put down right up to the trees and then turfed. The trees have been slowly browning from the inside out. Do you think the soil has buried the surface roots to deep now? is it to late to clear the area around the drip of the tree and take it back to the original ground level? any help would be appreciated as these trees mask a horrible new build block of flats being built behind, Thanks

Dovefromabove · August 2014

Hi Mike

The 'inside' of upright fir trees is normally brown - it's only the outer parts that have green foliage - are the trees brown on the outer surfaces?

Fairygirl · August 2014

Hi Mike, did you cut the fir trees back at all when you were doing other pruning in your garden?

I'd agree that trees - like hedging - will always benefit from having a clear area round them, free from grass or any other weeds and planting, but I wouldn't have thought mature trees would have suffered too much, and it seems from your description they're a good size if they're blocking an ugly view. I'm also quite surprised that whoever laid the new lawn took it right under the trees, but that's a different issue. I have a mature conifer in the corner of my back garden which has had lots of turf lifted from other areas, turned upside down and built up round it's base last year - to no negative effect.

mike19 · August 2014

Hi, thanks all, I have attached some pictures, one is worse than the other as previously had a lot of bushes and smaller trees pushing up against it, we pruneed the bottom 1.5 meter last year. The tree have a berry type growth on the tips,

Hope pictures helps

nutcutlet · August 2014

I'd pull away the soil from the base of the trunk and see if it's rotted as BB suggests. Some trees will put up will that but I doubt if many conifers will

Fairygirl · August 2014

Aah - I thought the trees were up against your boundary Mike, not in the middle of the lawn. The turfers should really have left a good circle of soil round them, so maybe that's the issue after all. I'd do what nut suggests and see what the trunk's like.

The 'berries' are just the seeds of the tree.

mike19 · August 2014

thanks will have a dig and see what condition they are in,

Fairygirl · August 2014

Hope you can resolve it Mike. It's always a shame if you have something mature which you'd like to keep, and it fails.

The pruning you've done - clearing the lower trunk - will let more light in, which will benefit your grass. I originally thought you might have cut back into old wood which is a more common cause of conifers dying as they won't regenerate from old wood.

Fairygirl · August 2014

Just another thought - the tree in the last pic, the right hand one - doesn't look great anyway Mike. You might be better removing it and planting something else instead to give you the screening you want.

Help Fir trees Dying

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