Losing my conifer boundary! Help!

Hi all, hope you can help.

Around 2.5 years ago, we moved from a house with a small, low maintenance garden to one with a larger garden that was maintained by two people who clearly knew what they doing (previous owners).

We have boundary conifers that look like are starting to die (if not dead already). I have read that the brown patches are now unsaveable and I am also seeing that this years growth is looking yellow and unhealthy.

In a panic I have spread the content of our compost heap under the conifers and ordered some conifer liquid fertiliser online.

Any help would be greatly appreciated as the thought of replacing this much boundary is a painful one. I also live on a busy road so having this border is very important.

Thanks in advance.

CM

 

If they are Leylandii (looks a bit like it, as they are scruffy at the top looking like they ARE trying to grow 3' a year ... Nope, I don't like them ...) then the No 1 candidate on my list would be Cypress aphid and the hedge is probably doomed.

Personally, if they are Leylandii (rather than, e.g. Thuja) I would see that as a great opportunity to replace them with something far superior. Downside is "tiny hedge and no proper boundary" for a few years, and also quite a lot of work getting the old ones out, and soil improved to allow planting of something in its place. Just chop-down and replant most definitely won't work, Leylandii is a gross feeder and there will be no goodness left in the soil there without some considerable help.

 

Thanks Kristen.

Our house is right on the busy main road on south coast of England, so do you think there is any hope for them?

I have 2 young children and ideally need the privacy for them and all the stuff that might be in garden...bikes etc.

Thanks

Chris

 

You could do "plan for the worst, hope for the best". If they are going to die that will take a few years, and you can leave them as a dead hedge for several more after that (according to "taste" )

maybe you could be growing replacements, in pots, elsewhere until the fateful date? and then you would be planting a hedge sufficient to act as a reasonable barrier, without having to pay top-dollar for the plants.

There was a long (several hundred metes) Leylandii hedge near me. Dead. Can't remember when it died, the earliest date on Google Street Maps is 2011 and it was already properly dead by then, and there were are Google photos between 2015 and 2017 - by which time it had been replaced. So basically it stood there, dead, for "years"

 

Sorry, my mistake, the oldest photo at the top was actually Mar 2009 !!!