Winter Gem Boxwood Leaves Turning White and Yellow

When our house was first built, it came with some cheapo basic landscaping, including a few winter gem boxwood [Buxus microphylla ‘Winter Gem’] that I ended up moving to the side yard because I didn't know what else to do with them. Now 3 out of 4 of those plants turned ghostly white and pale yellow, while the other remains as green as the day we moved in. What is the deal with these porcelain looking leaves? What is making my boxwood leaves turn freakishly white?

Winter Gem boxwood with winter scorch, pale yellow and white leaves that are dry from winter dessication injury. They really look like porcelain, they even look like they have cracks running right down the leaves.

After a few quick Google searches, it looks like this condition is known as winter burn, winter desiccation injury, winter drying, or my favorite winter scorch. It occurs for a number of reasons, but basically it's when the evergreen shrub (or conifer for that matter) loses too much moisture in the late fall and winter - especially when the weather warms and cools rapidly. This is common in the Midwest, in fact it's about 50°F here in Indiana today and will be going back down to the 20's this week.



It took me forever to find close up photos of boxwood leaves to identify this as Winter Gem, but if I'm mistaken please correct me in the comments!

This one looks completely un-touched and sits literally 2 feet from one that is completely yellow and white. My guess is the roots took better for this one, and the others probably couldn't get a good footing before the cold.

The treatment is to wait patiently until spring and distinguish the new growth from the truly dead branches, then prune the dead branches to 1/4" above live buds. Until then, I can enjoy my porcelain ghost boxwood and see what happens. I'm glad it happened to these 'extra' plants on the side yard and not something I went out of my way to buy.

A key symptom of winter burn or winter scorch is splitting branches. When the weather is temporarily warm, the plant sends water to the leaves and then when the weather turns all that water freezes and causes freezer burn along the stems.

One is totally fine and one is completely white. My guess is it has more to do with the roots than the wind in this case.

Young River Birch Bark Color in Winter

I was staring longingly at my yard through the sliding glass door, as I tend to do - wishing for Spring to come early - and I noticed my 5-stem river birch [Betula nigra] looked pinker than usual. The direct sun brought out the salmon or rusty-pink color in the thin trunks against a backdrop of white melting snow. It was a high of 48°F here in Indiana today.

Bark detail of the young river birch [Betula nigra] has a nice rusty pink color. The bark isn't peeling much on this young tree except down at the very bottom of the trunk.

My dad put two of these mini river birch groves in for me last summer, and they haven't had a real growing season yet - since they are so young, I'm hoping they had a chance to root in and that they will really take off this Spring! I love the shape of the mature trees and I can't wait to have a little more privacy in the backyard.

Here is the same river birch last summer when my yard was peaking with hydrangea blooms and the Liriope around the trees was perky and flowering

Checking In: Succulent Propagation Week 4

We're really cookin now! After a solid month since I pulled the leaves off the Aeonium haworthii Echeveria pulidonis plant, progress is speeding up - roots are shooting out - and I believe I'm seeing multiple baby plants not just one on the tip here.



See also, my previous post for the first few weeks: Succulent Propagation Week 3

Baby succulents emerging after 4 weeks