Are my bay trees dead?

[Kermitxyz]

This is my first post so hello to everyone.

Please could someone offer an opinion as to whether my bay trees are dead? They have never looked like this and I wonder if the very cold December weather has killed them.

I have snapped off the dead wood, what remains bends rather than snaps, so I presume there is some life left, but will they ever look any good again, or should I accept they are gone?

Thank you for any advice.
Richard

 

[Tetters]

Welcome to the forums @Kermitxyz
Well those are certainly looking a bit (very) sad. If they were mine, and as the stems are a bit flexible, I would prune them all down to a couple of inches above the compost, (hard prune) and leave them, well watered and fed to see what new growth you get. If that seems a bit drastic, maybe you could remove the dead leaves from some, and again feed and water well. Nature can work like a miracle, and I wish you luck.

 

[Chuck]

How cold did it get?

 

[Kermitxyz]

Welcome to the forums @Kermitxyz
Well those are certainly looking a bit (very) sad. If they were mine, and as the stems are a bit flexible, I would prune them all down to a couple of inches above the compost, (hard prune) and leave them, well watered and fed to see what new growth you get. If that seems a bit drastic, maybe you could remove the dead leaves from some, and again feed and water well. Nature can work like a miracle, and I wish you luck.

Thank you for your advice. I have pruned them back hard as you suggested so fingers crossed!

 

[Kermitxyz]

How cold did it get?

I would imagine around -10. But it happened very quickly - we had a very quick cold spell and I am told that the speed of temperature change caused a lot of damage to certain plants rather than the acutal temperature itself.

 

[Chuck]

I would imagine around -10. But it happened very quickly - we had a very quick cold spell and I am told that the speed of temperature change caused a lot of damage to certain plants rather than the acutal temperature itself.

The reason I asked is that 2 years ago we had a freeze almost the same as yours. There is a bay tree at a nursery that has a trunk diameter of about 12 inches. The owner wrapped the trunk in Nsulate up to about 4 feet. The entire top of the tree from the Nsulate up was killed. There is now new growth coming from the areas that were wrapped. I guess the moral of this story is that all is not lost especially if you have any green showing at all. But if in doubt scratch the bark on the limbs. If there is any color of a greenish tint that part is not dead.

 

[Kermitxyz]

That's interesting, thanks. Hopefully they will start to grow again, but I think it might be years before they look half decent!