Advice needed to help my tree please

[Mariana]

Hi
When I bought my house it had beautiful landscape but the trees were not healthy. I changed the mulch and used plant food, removed the sick trees and trimmed the good ones. until I saw my trees grow beautifully.
1 of my evergreen ( I suppose it is one) did not grow the new leaves in spring and thought maybe it is delayed. But then I noticed only 1 branch is growing and has new leaves but not the rest of the tree. I got tree disease solution from my Home Depot and tree food and no improvement. But I see the 1 branch is still growing new leaves. I refuse to say it died as I like this tree a lot.
I live in central NJ
Please advise.
Thank you in advance.

 

[MoonShadows]

Looks like it's time for a new tree, Mariana.

 

[Mariana]

 

[zigs]

Afraid it won't grow back from the dead wood. You could cut out the dead bit and see if the existing growth keeps growing.

 

[Chuck]

Hi
When I bought my house it had beautiful landscape but the trees were not healthy. I changed the mulch and used plant food, removed the sick trees and trimmed the good ones. until I saw my trees grow beautifully.
1 of my evergreen ( I suppose it is one) did not grow the new leaves in spring and thought maybe it is delayed. But then I noticed only 1 branch is growing and has new leaves but not the rest of the tree. I got tree disease solution from my Home Depot and tree food and no improvement. But I see the 1 branch is still growing new leaves. I refuse to say it died as I like this tree a lot.
I live in central NJ
Please advise.
Thank you in advance.

There is nothing you can do to make it into a tree again. Everything that doesn't have green is dead. You could cut away all of the dead and make an ugly bush though. I would try to find out why and what happened to kill most of the tree. I would have an arborist come and look at it. Just to make sure it is dead scratch the bark off of the trunk. If brown its dead.

 

[Tjohn]

Unfortunately, it looks like Pine Borers have gotten into it.They make the tree die from the top down and there's not much you can do about it. We lost quite a few to them around here.

 

[Mariana]

Is there a test to do and find out if that is the case ?

 

[Mariana]

There is nothing you can do to make it into a tree again. Everything that doesn't have green is dead. You could cut away all of the dead and make an ugly bush though. I would try to find out why and what happened to kill most of the tree. I would have an arborist come and look at it. Just to make sure it is dead scratch the bark off of the trunk. If brown its dead.

I will attempt this test and get back here. I am willing to do anything to save it.

 

[Mariana]

I scratched it. And attached pictures.
What would you say ?
It wasn't hard or dry as you would expect for having no foliage. It still feels moist and flexible.

 

[Chuck]

That looks brown to me. It's dead except for the portion of the trunk that has green foliage on the limbs. Scratch the bark on a limb that is still green. I bet that they aren't the same.

 

[Mariana]

Do you think they look different? They are side by side in the last picture

 

[Chuck]

From the pictures they look the same to me, brown, but if there is green foliage coming from the lower limb in the last picture, that limb is still alive. When I said scratch the bark I did not mean to dig into the limb. I meant to have you scratch just the outer layer away, not dig deep. 1/16 inch should be plenty. It will be brown if dead and greenish if alive.

 

[Mariana]

Thanks for your help. The scratch was superficial and they do look alike.
Any other tests I can do to find out if it's bug related ?

 

[Chuck]

Thanks for your help. The scratch was superficial and they do look alike.
Any other tests I can do to find out if it's bug related ?

I don't know of any. I would call an arborist.