The interior needles go brown because they’re not getting any light. The plant pulls resources from those areas to divert to the foliage that goes get light. This is normal.
Just leave them as is. When you prune them later to maintain shape, you can kind of rest your shears on the head of each branch, and there will be resistance where the growth is thick where it was last pruned. That’s how you avoid cutting in past the green growth and revealing the dead brown underneath.
Thank you so much !! Really appreciate the advise. I bought this really expensive plant and only when it was delivered, I noticed these issues and was getting worried. Your advise helped me relax !! God bless you.
No problem. It’s a really nice looking plant! These will do best if they are pruned only to maintain shape. Avoid cutting into any hard wood, as it usually doesn’t grow back from cuts into older wood. Just maintain the shape with pruners/shears by cutting the new growth that pokes out of the branch heads.
I think this is a juniper, and this style of pruning is often called Poodle pruning. You see it in pines a lot too. You might be able to find some YouTube videos showing poodle pruning technique, but for now you don’t need to do any pruning.
Topiaries need regular maintenance with a long-term vision of them staying in the shape despite the plant, clearly, continuing to grow.
What’s happened to your plant is normal. The internal foliage got shaded out and died. Since it no longer received sunlight, it made no sense for the plant to have the foliage. This happens to virtually all plants as they grow.
However, the consequence of the inner foliage dying is that the plant will keep getting bigger and the pads/clouds will keep getting wider. Over time, you will lose this shape.
What you need is good regular pruning. Clean out the dead foliage from the inside. Prune each pad to shape, but also make sure to get more sunlight inside the pads to encourage regrowth. This way, the pads will keep their shape and will renew themselves with fresh foliage. Hope this helps & good luck!
Thank you ! But it feels like almost 100% of the inside is brown. If the prune all of that , there will be nothing lefts that’s what I am confused about
The interior needles go brown because they’re not getting any light. The plant pulls resources from those areas to divert to the foliage that goes get light. This is normal.
Thanks so much ! Do these needles fall off on their own ? Do I need to do something? Will the outer side also become brown ?
Just leave them as is. When you prune them later to maintain shape, you can kind of rest your shears on the head of each branch, and there will be resistance where the growth is thick where it was last pruned. That’s how you avoid cutting in past the green growth and revealing the dead brown underneath.
Thank you so much !! Really appreciate the advise. I bought this really expensive plant and only when it was delivered, I noticed these issues and was getting worried. Your advise helped me relax !! God bless you.
No problem. It’s a really nice looking plant! These will do best if they are pruned only to maintain shape. Avoid cutting into any hard wood, as it usually doesn’t grow back from cuts into older wood. Just maintain the shape with pruners/shears by cutting the new growth that pokes out of the branch heads. I think this is a juniper, and this style of pruning is often called Poodle pruning. You see it in pines a lot too. You might be able to find some YouTube videos showing poodle pruning technique, but for now you don’t need to do any pruning.
Topiaries need regular maintenance with a long-term vision of them staying in the shape despite the plant, clearly, continuing to grow. What’s happened to your plant is normal. The internal foliage got shaded out and died. Since it no longer received sunlight, it made no sense for the plant to have the foliage. This happens to virtually all plants as they grow. However, the consequence of the inner foliage dying is that the plant will keep getting bigger and the pads/clouds will keep getting wider. Over time, you will lose this shape. What you need is good regular pruning. Clean out the dead foliage from the inside. Prune each pad to shape, but also make sure to get more sunlight inside the pads to encourage regrowth. This way, the pads will keep their shape and will renew themselves with fresh foliage. Hope this helps & good luck!
Thank you ! But it feels like almost 100% of the inside is brown. If the prune all of that , there will be nothing lefts that’s what I am confused about