My Ceanothus seems to have died

[JulesV]

Any garden experts able to give me a bit of advice? I have (or had) a very nice Ceanothus in my garden which is usually a mass of colour in spring. It is about 10 years old and about eight or nine feet high. This year however it looks dead, no flowers or leaves. My gardening book says they can be affected by late cold snaps which of course we had this year. So, should I just leave it and see what happens, or give it a good prune to try to stimulate some new growth, or admit defeat and get rid of it?

[missdiane]

Odd, we had bad snow this year, it managed to snap some of the empty terracotta posts, yet my very young Ceanothus has survived and although slow, is coming into bloom, only bought it last year.

Beautiful flowers

[TimJMS]

Compared to last year, we have not actually (yet) had any late frosts. The explanation lies elsewhere.

[JulesV]

Thanks. The snow we had this year was pretty late though. All the adjoining plants seem fine, maybe it has just reached the end of its life, anyone know how long they typically last? It's a shame as it is usualy a mass of colour.

[Simpo Two]

Sometimes a plant will expeience a severe setback for some reason, but still have enough grunt left to pull through. Don't despair yet. My way to tell if a branch or stem is really dead is to scratch off the skin. If it's green underneath, it's alive so leave it alone; if it's brown, it's dead and can be removed.

Hopefully it will throw up some new shoots later, or maybe next year, then you can identify the dead bits and cut them off.