Issues with a Blue Spruce turning brown
 

Hi,

We had this issue last year and hoped it had recovered but it looks worse this year.

It’s a blue spruce that my parents purchased for us when we moved into our first home and we really would hate to lose it.

The tree is pretty much totally brown aside from (apparently) healthy new growth at the tips of every branch.

I’ve attached a photo to show what I mean.

Is this in anyway normal for this tree? Could it be due to the roots being stifled? It’s planted in a smallish area with lots of other smaller plants.

Any advice would be really appreciated.

Thanks.

Thanks very much for the response.

Oddly, we had the same issue around the same time last year last year and thought we might be losing it but the browning seemed to halt and we had a lot of new growth.

Now the browning has come back with a vengeance this year.

So I’m presuming it must be environmental rather than fungus/insects..? If it happened last year, semi-recovered, and started again this year.

As the brown needles are never going to recover and they cover 80% of the tree, would there be any benefit in just cutting it all back?

Or are we going to end up with something that looks like a big version of Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree?!

Issues with a Blue Spruce turning brown
 

In article ,
Sandman1600 wrote:

Oddly, we had the same issue around the same time last year last year
and thought we might be losing it but the browning seemed to halt and we
had a lot of new growth.

Now the browning has come back with a vengeance this year.

So I’m presuming it must be environmental rather than fungus/insects..?
If it happened last year, semi-recovered, and started again this year.

Perhaps. It could be both.

As the brown needles are never going to recover and they cover 80% of
the tree, would there be any benefit in just cutting it all back?

No. Conifers other than yews do not reshoot from old wood.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

Thanks again for the responses. Really appreciated.

Sounds like it’s beyond help unless we want big empty branches with new growth at the tips.