My skip laurel leaves are turning yellow and brown. - Ask Extension
My skip laurel leaves are turning yellow and brown. It seems to be spreading. Can you to to my Yard in Columbia to look at it and give me a solution t...
Knowledgebase
My skip laurel leaves are turning yellow and brown. #930089
Asked April 29, 2026, 6:59 PM EDT
My skip laurel leaves are turning yellow and brown. It seems to be spreading. Can you to to my Yard in Columbia to look at it and give me a solution to the problem
Howard County Maryland
Expert Response
We are not able to offer in-person site visits for diagnosis, but you can look through our cherry laurel diagnostic web page for indications of what the problem may be. (You can also share photos of the symptoms here for our feedback...it's very hard to diagnose a plant we can't see. You can attach image files or paste them into the body of a reply. Please have each image be at least 1MB in size so we can enlarge it to see more detail if needed.)
Our primary guess would be winterburn, which causes leaves (or leaf edges) to turn brown and dry out. It happens often with evergreens over the winter, especially if the season is dry or we experience below-freezing cold snaps, both of which happened this winter. The ongoing drought is stressing many plants, and it would help to monitor them for watering needs until we get more regular rains again. The linked page has guidance for determining when to water.
Damaged leaves are shed by the plant over time, especially after it produces a flush of new growth. You may see partially-damaged leaves turn yellow and fall off in the coming weeks, or the plant may hold onto them and shed them another year. If an insect pest or branch dieback has caused a significant portion of the shrub to decline, you may want to replace them instead of rehabbing them instead. We can help narrow-down what issue may be present and what the best solution is once we can see the shrubs and symptoms.
Miri
Our primary guess would be winterburn, which causes leaves (or leaf edges) to turn brown and dry out. It happens often with evergreens over the winter, especially if the season is dry or we experience below-freezing cold snaps, both of which happened this winter. The ongoing drought is stressing many plants, and it would help to monitor them for watering needs until we get more regular rains again. The linked page has guidance for determining when to water.
Damaged leaves are shed by the plant over time, especially after it produces a flush of new growth. You may see partially-damaged leaves turn yellow and fall off in the coming weeks, or the plant may hold onto them and shed them another year. If an insect pest or branch dieback has caused a significant portion of the shrub to decline, you may want to replace them instead of rehabbing them instead. We can help narrow-down what issue may be present and what the best solution is once we can see the shrubs and symptoms.
Miri
