Greetings,

My garden railroad sits on a raised bed that spans the width of my backyard. In each corner we have planted 3 Aptos Blue Redwoods for privacy from the two-story houses on each side. The three trees on one side is noticeably more stressed and brown than the other side. I admittedly was bad at getting the watering system established for these trees quickly enough. This, coupled with the drought we have been experiencing has led to the poor look of the trees.

I also think aside from the poor watering, the addition of my phase 2 of the railroad in this area have contributed to the poor look of the trees.

So my question is do I have any hope of reviving these trees back to the greenness of the other side? I have left the dropped needles on the ground as a kind of mulch or covering to retain moisture. I have also added some deep watering pipes in the ground randomly around the outer canopy of the trees. And since we are not really having a winter here in the Central Valley of California I’ve upped the watering and begun spraying the trees at night to simulate moisture they would normally get from fog, etc.

Any thoughts are very welcome…

Richard

Your best bet would be to check with your County Agricultural Extension. There a bit more expert on local plant and tree problems. Could be bugs, or a virus or any other number of reasons. Plants do get stressed on occasion, depending on local conditions. Most of the time they bounce right back. Unless you disturbed the roots when putting in your layout, it probably has a minimal affect on the trees.

Agreeing with Ken’s advice, here. Your local (underline local) County Agricultural Extension is definitely the best place to ask. The price is right, too, btw…

Soil pH? They generally do best in acidic soil. Try gifting them with your used coffee grounds. John LF has the best idea, though.

Been an awful dry winter here in Nebraska, but cold. Was warm enough yesterday for me to run a sprinkler some on the railroad. Should have done it earlier, but tended to run trains when it was nice enough. So, if it’s been dry in your area you might consider watering.

“Most” trees can actually survive 1 bad growing season with complete leaf loss, water and gertilizer injections will help HOWEVER if you decide on the water option you will need to continue it on a routine basis or you will do more harm to the tree then not watering and letting it manage the drought itself

We have a grove of 53 redwoods across the street and another 47 where I “work” in in southern California. They are stressed, they are suffering from some bug. Redwoods are shallow rooted, so deep watering won’t help much. Redwoods get about 30% of the moisture they need from fog. We are augmenting our irrigation at both places to provide more consistent watering, and we have the County Agricultural Extension evaluate the insect infestation to decide what to do about the bugs.

Richard - Did a quick search of the Univ. CA website. Bingo - there is an excellent source of info at UCCE, Fresno: http://ucanr.edu/sites/mgfresno/Landscape_Tree_Care/

Also noticed they were doing some interesting conferences in the upcoming months that might be helpful to garden railroaders: http://ucanr.edu/sites/mgfresno/

Here in Colorado the Colorado State University Extension has proven to be an EXCELLENT source of information to myself and other garden railroaders.

Conifers in general prefer acidic soil. I use Scotts® Evergreen, Flowering Tree & Shrub Continuous Release Plant Food.

Overview & BenefitsGreat for use on all types of acid-loving plants such as: azaleas, camellias, rhododendrons, evergreens, etc. Special formula gives evergreens and acid-loving plants deeper green color and stronger root systems.

Available sizes:

3 lb bag and 20 lb bag

We planted some 4 foot tall CO blue spruce in late fall 2012. In the spring last year, I applied a healthy application of the above Scotts fertilizer and 2 more times during the year and had excellent results. The trees survived the continuing drought here and actually had from 2-3 inches of new growth. Made a believer out of me.

One more thing I learned - put a generous amount (3-4") of cedar bark chips/shavings around the tree beyond the drip ring. The chips act as moisture barrier to help the soil retain water. This made a large difference to the dwarf Alberta spruce near the layout and outside the range of the sprinkler system.

Thanks everyone for your suggestions…I haven’t contacted any local associations yet. But I have been giving the trees some water since last month was an extremely dry month. I also found a bag of Ironite in my shed and followed the instructions and applied some. So we’ll see how things turn out. I am encouraged by some new growth I’m seeing…just hope it can crowd out the dry looking stuff.

We have actually begun to get some rain this past week…lets hope that is a continuing trend.

Richard

I underwatered my smaller redwoods last summer during the hot spell (100+ for 14 days) here in Waterford, CA. The bigger (30 gal.) ones did okay because they got watered with the lawn. The smaller ,(5 gal.) ones have lots of brown, but are alive and I’m sure they will come out of it this spring. It’s been raining for 2 days, which is a big help.

Greetings Everyone!!

I’ve been away for awhile just because of work and family responsibilities.

But I wanted to update everyone on my redwood situation and am happy to report that all three stressed trees really came back well in the late spring. This after dropping some pipe for some deep and consistent drip watering. I was so relieved to find buds showing themselves which sprouted into healthy looking branches and needles. Even with our current drought and continual hot weather the trees seem to be doing well.

Now I’m looking forward to a quote for replacing my current wood retaining wall to a more permanent concrete wall before I launch into any more building ideas such as a pond or waterfall.

Will keep you updated.

Richard