As we turned the page from winter to spring, it seems many trees on our yards turned from the colour green to the colour brown.
"I've never seen so many plants that have succumbed to the winter," says local lawn and garden expert Carla Hrycyna.
She says a lot of cedars, junipers, globe cedars and evergreens have been turning a rust colour. This is the result of a very dry fall, with little moisture in the ground, followed by an early, cold winter without much snow. Hrycyna explains the roots of these trees were not able to take up enough moisture. The roots need this moisture to be locked in with ice to sustain the tree through winter. Otherwise, on warm days, wind can act as a desiccant and dry out the tree, turning it into a winter rusty red.
It's not all plants and trees that took a hit this winter. In fact, in a row of four cedars, you could very well see three of them look a lush green, while the other one appears rusty. Hrycyna says it is genetic and they don't all have the same structure. This is similar to two children coming from the same gene pool, yet one child is always healthy and the other is often sick.
Hrycyna says if the plant or tree is worth saving, it should be fed a high nitrogen fertilizer. She suggests if you see new bud growth, put the energy into that tree because there is viability there. However, it could take a few years for that rust colour to disappear. But, she says if the branching is exceedingly brittle, it is probably beyond the recovery stage.
Because it is genetic, Hrycyna says you could dig out that tree or plant and place something else there without concern.