Leyland Cypress 33% down

Bought 3 Leyland Cypress last fall for screening. Thought they were hardy enough to do well here. One of the three has died and three of four cedars I moved to this same site from undergrowth across the yard have died too. Nursery says too much water may be the culprit so I'm pulling up the dead ones to see what I can find out and if that's true am considering moving all, adding gravel and replanting them in an elevated bed.
Does this sound like a good approach?
I have images that I'll attach as soon as I figure out how.

JimboTN
Christiana, TN



This message was edited Mar 4, 2006 10:14 PM

Here is a picture of the area

and a close-up of the dearly departed:

One more

Leyland cypress seems to be having problems everywhere lately. Some of them are being infested by some type of mite. Other people here on DG know more about this than me. You might have more luck with Arborvitae or Eastern Red Cedar. My grandfather planted over 80 Leylands along his property line because of a new school next door and has had considerable loses. Now there are gaps everywhere.

Adding gravel to your planting holes will not help, and might hurt.

Scott

There are many who would say that you're 1/3 of the way to salvation. Lelands are hated by many people, for a variety of reasons. I can't grow them here so I'll leave those reasons to others to explain.

Another comment that has come up often on similar threads in the past -- consider creating a landscape, planting rather than a screen. Any time you plant a row of something, you have two problems: first, it always looks like a screen, and merely calls attention to the forbidden fruit you are trying to hide; second, one or more of the plants will not survive long term, and from that point on you always have an obvious hole in your planting that would not have been obvious if the planting was informal and diverse.

Guy S.

I'd agree with Guy - Leyland Cypress is (in the eastern US) disease-prone (Seridium canker, if you want to look it up), and also a very boring tree en masse.

Jimbo:

Give us some more info on your cultural/planting conditions, like:

•was this site regraded for home construction (indication of compacted soils)
•is the site perennially wet (or was the potential overwatering self-inflicted)
•soil quality (heavy thick clay, sandy loam, what?)

Raising beds is OK, but only delays the inevitable with long-lived woody plants. The roots eventually have to grow into your overall site conditions, so it's a good plan to select species that can tolerate what you've got there.

Dittoes to Guy/Resin's comments. You'll be able to entertain your interest in a wider variety of plants by envisioning a mixed border of species that "oh by the way" screens out what you don't want to look at.

If I see dozens of one type of plant at every garden center I go to, I usually avoid it.

Come on guys...three Leylands planted on what looks to be a large property is not a monoculture screen. I see enough large and healthy Leylands around me to know they are a little more hardy than some postings would make them out to be. To me it looks like Jimbo created an attractive mixed planting.

- Brent (who recently planted 3 Green Giant Arborvitaes due to forum peer pressure)

Hi Brent, I know what you mean. I don't have any Leyland Cypress, but I do have a Lowson Cypress, one parent of the enfant terrible. The single biggest threat to the Leyland hybrids most years are the bagworms. They will almost leave a Colorado Blue Spruce for a Leyland. And if planting a Leyland is prima facie evidence of tree ignorance, could one then conjecture that the trees (such that they are) would also be less likely to be sprayed when they got wormy?

Here in the Mid-Atlantic region the climate has been ok for Leylands for a while now. Probably half of the Leylands now planted here are 10yrs old or less, and we are only beginning to see the plague. Then, some year or years when the weather conditions change, there will be mass dieoffs from mites or fungi. Some winter we will have a lot of ice storms like were more frequent in the 80's. They don't have to be bad, just the little ones that make the woods pretty and the Bradford Pears split.

I see them on 60'X60'/18mx18m plots now grown to the point of annihilating anything that was planted at the same time. Sometimes you get a glimpse of a ragged skirt of Azaleas at the bottom of the wall of green. Maybe a scrawny Lilac, itself in need of a good session with the pruners. There is a neighborhood (neighubouruhooud, for those who luv u) in town with tightly spcaced homes shaded by Silver Maples and divided by hedges of Leyland Cypress. The new forest has sparrows and starlings (what mannner of place must it be where they have pests like that as native fauna!) which perch high on the wires looking down on their enemy, the feral cat.

A couple of hot dry summers followed by a few ice storms and the forest will change again.

Brent! NEVER submit to forum peer pressure! It can cause bad things to happen. Although I don't know that your Green Giants were a bad thing at all, depending upon how you used them -- certainly not in the same league with Leylands or Bradfords.

I agree that Jimbo's planting does have some diversity, and despite my blunt statement I was trying to be helpful, not critical. It's still too regimented for me, with a plant of this and a plant of that and then repeating the pattern. Study the series of winter photos Evilibrium posted on that Living Screens thread for a terrific example of what I'm talking about. If he's losing some of his Leylands anyway, he could do something like that to replace them.

Guy S.
(edited to add the name of the other thread, once I found it again!)

This message was edited Mar 7, 2006 9:07 AM

LOOK! Resin's here! Welcome, Resin! Nice to see you found us!
--Joulz (was Joolz at GW)

Joulz van Winkle . . . ;-)

Resin has been here for weeks! Things are hoppin' here now -- you need to get here more often or you lose touch. But we still do have a few others to bring over yet.

Guy S.

Ha Ha "Joulz van Winkle" -- That's cracking me up. You have no idea. I work all day at home with the kids, then work all night at the paper and I never sleep. So yeah, you're right about THAT one!!! ; ) My trees keep me sane.

You folks as well as some other active threads hereabouts are providing me with great input. My property (2.5 acres) was converted from pasture and corn field about 6 years ago. I still have croprows behind the house that are about 8-12" high every 36-40 inches and go almost all the way across the lot.

After heavy rains I am left with multiple mini-ponds where water is trapped by these rows. I even had a miniature "spring" during today's rain so there may be even stranger things going on beneath the surface. I guess this points to my needing to work on drainage and that will mesh nicely with my plans to moderate the crop rows this spring. Additionally, there is a substantial amount of large rock, which frequently is above ground here.

As for the plantings in the area I showed which is about 80 feet of my 572 foot long side, the cedars and cypress are stagger planted. Next closer to my patio are five crepemyrtles of different colors and I have cherry trees randomly located next closer but towards each end. There are a lot of other trees of various types planted in the cleared area, we stopped counting at 75, but these do include dogwood and redbud which are two of our favorites.

Thanks for the ideas and information. I am continuing to develop what I hope will be an effective plan to provide a pleasant view to my east.

JimboTN
"Now what am I going to wish I'd done right after I do what I'm about to do?"

I'll post a few more views of the backyard...here's looking SE from the west side of the house. The high grass at the back is my neighbor's, all else including trees are mine:

This message was edited Mar 10, 2006 3:56 PM

This is the view that includes the area where the cedars and cypress are. They are where the boards from the raised beds were.

And lastly but not leastly, the view to the SW from the east property line across from the house. I have the drop in elevation to have good drainage, I think the crop rows are hindering it and my plan is to eliminate them this spring.