Withered beech leaves

Yesterday, about midday, I was I the garden and was pleased to see that my beech hedge was steadily continuing to bust out in new green leaves. I returned less than an hour later to find the leaves totally withered and apparently dead. The whole hedge now reeks of dead foliage. It is unlike anything I have ever seen. I cannot explain it. There was a frost the night before, which gradually developed into a relatively mild day, but the weather has been nothing like as extreme as we have had the past. Can anyone provide an answer? Will the leaves grow back?

 

Probably frost damage, if you can smell it.
Warm sun on frosted shoots are not good, it will recover but it might be a bit slow now.

 

Ok, thanks. I just couldn't make sense of it. It has never happened before and did not affect any other trees.

 

Well to be honest I can't think of anything else it could be.
Unless someone spayed it with some thing nasty when you wasn't around.

It looks like the new growth was pretty advanced and if you had an air frost it could easily do that.
The new growth on some trees are unharmed by frost, others don't like it.