Why do junipers die

Entire branches dying back especially on larger shrubs or juniper trees may be due to twig blight. This is caused by cankers. This disease can also cause foliage on infected branches to turn yellow or brown and wilt. Cankers vary greatly in appearance but are often a circular or oblong lesion that may be discolored, oozing or sunken. Cutting under cankered bark usually reveals discolored tissue, which may have a well-defined margin separating it from healthy tissue. When cankers entirely circle girdle stems or trunks, foliage turns yellow or brown and wilts as the plant dies outward or upward from the canker.

Infected bark often discolors and may exude copious resin. If you think you have blight or canker, prune out infected branches, again making sure to clean pruners between cuts.

The Shasta Master Gardeners Program can be reached by phone at or email mastergardeners shastacollege. The gardener office is staffed by volunteers trained by the University of California to answer gardeners' questions using information based on scientific research. Here's a link to a post I did a few years ago on dealing with voles. Another possibility for your browning is one of two blight diseases that attack junipers.

These usually start with random brown tips, spreading to kill whole branches and possibly whole plants. When you look at the needles under a hand lens or other magnification, you can see little black dots like pepper that indicate fungal spores. That's a telltale sign of blight. These diseases are hard to stop, other than with regular spraying of fungicides. I usually lean toward pruning off dead tips and dead wood and relying on the plant's immune system and uninfected wood to grow through the infection.

In the long run, it's cheaper and easier to just replace blight-infected plants than to keep buying sprays and applying them about four times every year. Unfortunately, you can't just spray once and kill off the disease. Note to readers: if you purchase something through one of our affiliate links we may earn a commission.

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Juniper shrub responds well to your pruning efforts. Although the Juniper shrub is recommended by many it does run into some problems. Needle-leaves of Juniper turn brown when the plant is experiencing transplant shock. Did you transplant your Juniper recently? This also happens if the root ball went dry while transporting. You need not panic if your Juniper is experiences transplant shock. Give your Juniper 1-inch of water every week. Add a layer of organic mulch around your Juniper hedge to prevent excess evaporation of moisture.

Cut off the dead branches. The plant will recover soon if you take good care of it. Tips of Junipers turn brown due to a disease called Twig blight. Initially the infected leaves turn reddish brown. Eventually the infected leaves turn dark gray in color.

Twig blight is characterized by die back of the new foliage which moves downward into the central foliage. Juniper tip blight is caused by a fungus called Phomopsis juniperovora. The fungal might spread from an infected plant to a healthy plant through insects, mechanical means, or water splashes. So, it is crucial to get rid of the dead plant parts carefully. Fungicides containing Thiophanate methyl or Mancozeb as active ingredient work wonders.

Spray this fungicide in early spring fortnightly for the best results. Kabatina tip blight is another type of blight that can infect Junipers. In February and March the tips of the branches turn red or yellow. Control methods listed above work for Kabatina tip blight too. Juniper may turn brown in winter due to the Kabatina tip blight disease or a condition called winter desiccation.