Is my tree/shrub dead ?

[nickdub]

After a cold winter we all hope to see signs of life in our ornamental plants by now.

I have two which are not looking good at the moment, one is a snake-bark maple and the tree definitely looks dead. My experience with ornamental maples has been that once they get poorly, even if they put on some new growth, they usually don't last long and die pretty quickly. Ceanothus is another in this category - once they start going downhill they then turn up their toes pretty fast.

The other tree on my sick list is a Paulownia tomentosa - I grew several of these from seed and planted the largest up by my drive near to the neighbour's hedge. Again I'm fairly sure most of the above ground part is dead, but I know that these can sometimes re-grow from low down. I scraped a bit of bark near soil level with my thumb and it showed green - so I haven't given up on this one yet.

In summary, unless you need the space or the dead specimen is so big it could be dangerous if it falls, my general philosophy is to leave them where they are for a bit longer to see if they rise again.

[Nicos]

I bought a yellow buddleia last summer and earlier this year it grew new leaves which were then hit by a frost. Not a heavy one, but enough to kill off the leaves.
I'm still patiently waiting to see if it's going to grow more leaves( like my other 3purple ones have).
I'm starting to think that maybe it's more delicate than the purple ones.
Not yet done the scratch test, but gut feeling says there's not much hope.

Last year my twisty witch hazel flowered , then was hit by frost and never grew any leaves. That's well and truly dead...zilch...nada

As you say...I leave mine too.

[nickdub]

Coincidentally I lost a Buddleia Globosa last year too - doesn't seem to be anywhere near as tough as the common purple ones - it was pretty small and in its first year, so that was probably a factor.

[Bluenowhere]

Incidentally same thing happened to my white buddleia this year grew leaves, hit by snow now nada. Where as its purple cousin is doing just fine.

[Madasafish]

I have one mature ceanothus which looked dead two months ago - leaves now appearing.
Ditto ceanothus cuttings overwintered.

I always wait all summer before deciding bushes/trees are dead after winter.. we had a hypericum and a clematis ## both of which died down to the ground post 2011-12 winter (-16c EVERY NIGHT FOR 6 NIGHTS).. I cut both down to the ground - and replanted a new clematis. Both survived and grew in 2013..

## The clematis had a stem 15cms in diameter and was at least 50 years old...it's starting to flower now - 3.5 meters tall...

[nickdub]

Quick update - maple still looks stone dead but the Paulownia has the very merest sign of buds breaking low down on the trunk - about as I expected, given the plants involved.