{"id":2649,"date":"2020-01-23T00:02:57","date_gmt":"2020-01-23T08:02:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/hortlib\/pal\/pal-question-444\/"},"modified":"2024-04-20T10:27:31","modified_gmt":"2024-04-20T17:27:31","slug":"defoliation-on-cedar-trees","status":"publish","type":"pal","link":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/hortlib\/pal\/defoliation-on-cedar-trees\/","title":{"rendered":"Defoliation on cedar trees"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>I have a golden cedar about 6 feet high. This winter many sparrows sat on the top portion while waiting their turn at the feeder. I don&#8217;t know if they ate the leaves or if their little feet knocked them off, but many of the branches are stripped and brown. Will they come back? Should I cut them out and hope that new branches will fill in the spaces? It is approximately half of the front top of the tree. Or is it time to take it out? I would prefer not to, unless it can&#8217;t be saved.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I am assuming that your golden cedar is a form of <i>Thuja occidentalis<\/i> or <i>Thuja<br \/>\nplicata<\/i>. It is possible the sparrows caused the damage, but there could be other<br \/>\nfactors involved. It is difficult to tell without seeing the plant. Below are<br \/>\ngeneral comments on the liabilities of <i>Thuja occidentalis<\/i> as a landscape plant,<br \/>\npreviously available from the Ohio State University Extension website.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Winter evergreen foliage color is often an unattractive yellow-brown<\/li>\n<li>very prone to bagworms and their feeding damage<\/li>\n<li>very prone to branch separation under snow and ice loads<\/li>\n<li>widens at its base with age, or separates into several leaning but<br \/>\ndivergent canopies with age (this applies to both upright and rounded cultivars)<\/li>\n<li>does not recover from severe pruning (where the bare stems are exposed,<br \/>\nalthough side branches may slowly envelope the dead stems)<\/li>\n<li>interior foliage noticeably sheds in Autumn<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The defoliation you describe might also be the work of bagworms. If the tips of<br \/>\nthe branches are dying back, that could be a result of winter injury, drought<br \/>\nstress, or a fungal disease. Since I cannot diagnose the problem remotely, I<br \/>\nthink it would be best if you brought a sample of the affected plant to a Master<br \/>\nGardener Clinic. If you are in King County, <a href=\"https:\/\/extension.wsu.edu\/king\/gardening\/mg\/\">this link<\/a> will lead you to their website.<\/p>\n<div class=\"taxonomy-keyword has-text-align-right wp-block-post-terms\"><a href=\"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/hortlib\/keyword\/thuja\/\" rel=\"tag\">Thuja<\/a><span class=\"wp-block-post-terms__separator\">, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/hortlib\/keyword\/thuja-plicata\/\" rel=\"tag\">Thuja plicata<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I have a golden cedar about 6 feet high. This winter many sparrows sat on the top portion while waiting their turn at the feeder. I don&#8217;t know if they ate the leaves or if their little feet knocked them off, but many of the branches are stripped and brown. Will they come back? Should I cut them out and hope that new branches will fill in the spaces? It is approximately half of the front top of the tree&#8230;.<\/p>\n<div><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/hortlib\/pal\/defoliation-on-cedar-trees\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Defoliation on cedar trees<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"menu_order":0,"template":"","keyword":[528,456],"class_list":["post-2649","pal","type-pal","status-publish","hentry","keyword-thuja","keyword-thuja-plicata"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/hortlib\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pal\/2649"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/hortlib\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pal"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/hortlib\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/pal"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/hortlib\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/hortlib\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"keyword","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/hortlib\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/keyword?post=2649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}