Conifer Hedge dead or alive.

I have a conifer hedge many years old,spanning 20 conifers to boxed shape.Green on top and both sides,except section five conifers(Green top and rearside) Front side south facing  bare stick like.Can you help,do I feed it...ect.

Hi, we have a number of conifers - also quite old. Most of them are fine however some developed brown patches and seem to be dying off. we had tree specialists around to cut the conifers and they said that many conifers across the country have been attacked this year by aphid infestations (when looking around many trees in the area also have these quite large brown patches). Apparently there is research taking place to see how this can be treated some trees have been known to recover  but at the moment there isn't much we can do but wait and hope.

I think they will not recover as new growth don't grow when there cut into once brown it's dead i'm afraid !!

- its a real shame and will create a problem for me as the ones that are brown are right in the middle of the rows - much easier to replace if they had been on the end if we need to - is that the same for you Larkey? I've heard that injecting affected trees with some sort of chemical is being trialled so I'll wait and see - in the meantime I hope it doesn't spread along the rows

I've noticed that some gardeners tend to cut conifers back to dead wood, which then can't recover.  I did it with one of mine which was in the way of the step leading off the patio, so in the end it had to come down.  Perhaps if you leave them untrimmed at the place they are brown, or use them as a frame to grow a vine or creeper over rather than pulling them down.  I think they must be like lavender, once you cut past the live wood it won't recover.

Thanks for this idea - they definitely weren't cut back too far so I'll wait and see what happens then maybe try something like this