The leaves of our California lilac (ceanothus Victoria) are completely brown. Is it likely the cold damaged it? Is there any chance it will recover?
Has it shown any signs of life yet? My entire hedge is about 80% dead, with new growth on the top. I am wondering if anyone has advice for revitalization pruning. I don't mind if it looks a bit patchy for awhile (the shrubs are quite mature and if I can avoid removing it that would be preferable), but read that it does not send out new growth on old wood. Is there any hope of recovering it?
Yes, the ends of some of the bushes have green leaves, but like your hedge, it's at least 80% dead. I'd also be interested in some advice about whether it might recover and how best to deal with it.
...me too, I was reading on another thread that overpruning is a problem, as can be the cold. I have smaller shrubs that I pruned fairly agressively each year as I didn't want them to become a 10' bush, did this add to the problem? I pruned after flowering and they seemed to be doing ok right into the fall. After this cold winter, the shrubs are now 75% dead with only the far outside with any life to them. They are flowering now...do I give up and plant new ones, or should I try pruning off the dead stuff, which is most of the plant?
Ok, so anybody that cares, I did sort of trim my CL's up a bit from the burnt looking bottoms, and they are blooming nicely now. They were in the middle of bloom and I couldn't look at them anymore and trimmed them up a bit anyways. I was not very aggressive with it so I will go at them again after they bloom, maybe I will stick to the "little at a time" method because I read on another thread that they do not like aggressive pruning. I was very jealous of my neighbour when I saw her (very small) CL that she planted last year. Not a spot on it ! NO problem with the snow at all, what is with that ?
Okay, the green tips of parts of our California lilac are doing well, and in fact have blooms on them. Also, the plants that seemed dead have green leaves sprouting from the base of them - at least most of the plants. So I think I'll wait until after the blooming ones have stopped blooming, then I'll cut the dead ones back to the new growth. It will be an odd looking hedge, and we'll have to insert a few new plants, but at least all is not lost, and perhaps it will be okay again in a few years - here's hoping we don't have such a harsh winter. PS. I pruned some of ours fairly hard last fall, but those ones may be the ones doing best, so I don't know if hard pruning made them more vulnerable to the cold.
