Ailing Blue Spruce

In February, we noticed our blue spruce trees were looking thin and scraggly.

 

My husband put some fertilizer around them, but it didn't help.

 

After the weather warmed, we realized that the trees had some kind of fungal infection. We looked up the symptoms on the 'net.

 

 

My husband lopped off about three feet of branches from the bottoms of the two trees that were the most infected.

 

 

I really hated to see him do that, as we planted these trees when we moved here 28 years ago.

 

 

This might give you a better idea of how bad the lower branches were looking prior to cutting.

 

 

 

From all indications, this is the result of the wet spring and summer we had last year. 

 

 

The poor trees scarcely had any needles left on them on some branches.

 

 

This is one of the healthier trees. We sprayed it with a fungicide, as we did all of them.

 

 

This tree, which is the furthest away from the others, seems to have been spared most of the damage. It is being sprayed with fungicide too, though. 

 

 

This leaking of white sap is a tell-tale sign of the fungal infection.