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Any hope I can bring them back to life? Anyone gotten professionals to plant shrubs on their backyard before? What kind of cost per shrub should I be expecting? Do they grow fast?
Before investing in new plants, talk to someone at a nearby nursery who is familiar with local growing conditions. Another shrub that does better in your locale might be a better alternative.
Since they look like good, established shrubs, you might try the fertilizer spikes, and a lot of water to see if that might bring them back. That being said, and with as many as you have in that kind of shape, I would venture to say they might also be suffering from some sort of bug attack rather than lack of nutrients and water. They look like arborvitae trees, and from my experience with them, they do not grow exceptionally fast. As far as the cost on replacing them at that height, I would imagine it might be pricey. I would get a professional out to evaluate the situation because from the looks of things in the picture, the problem is spreading. Good luck.
Most of those brown ones look completely dead. This winter killed a lot of evergreens. Those will not be cheap to replace. The minimum a gardener would charge is $100 per bush. You could do it yourself for less, but it requires some work on your part, and an SUV big enough for the plants, soil and mulch. Btw, deer love arborvitae. I replaced mine with Leyland Cyprus a few years ago because the deer kept eating them. There is also a hybrid arborvitae/Cyprus that the deer don't like.
I agree that those shrubs appear to be beyond resuscitation, but I also think that a possible cause of their demise is an infestation of Spider Mites.
All too often, I have seen people trying--in vain--to save evergreen shrubs with heavy applications of fertilizer and water, when all that they needed was a periodic spraying with insecticide in order to control those spider mites.
Arborvitae grow very slowly. I planted several of them 3 years ago in full sun and they have barely shown much growth since then. The trees I purchased were in the 6'-7' range and cost me $75 each from a local nursery. You might want to cut off a branch from one of the brown trees and bring it to your local nursery. They should be able to take a look at it and determine the cause of the problem. I know Metropolitan Plant Exchange in West Orange and Fort Lee will do this.
Like many evergreens, Arbovitae will not show damage for months after the fact.
By the time they look like this, they have died months ago. and are only showing it now.
Last winter was a very bad winter for evergreens, had a sigificant snow pact all winter.
This kept the soil wet and cold all winter.
Evergreens close to roads were hit repeatedly by salt from salting trucks and the snow pack held it close to the roots.
Not much rain to flush the salt away with fresh water
Same sort of thing down the shore, the surge from Sandy flooded the area with salt water, excess salt is in the soil and will cause problems for years for intolerate shrubs.
Don't bother trying to save these, they died long ago, just didn't show it.
You can replace them, make sure the area has good drainage
What other plants that look similar, faster to grow and maybe cheaper to replace? previous owner got these for privacy, I want to maintain the privacy.
What other plants that look similar, faster to grow and maybe cheaper to replace? previous owner got these for privacy, I want to maintain the privacy.
A friend of my mine mentioned laurel hedges, I'm going to plant them for a privacy fence. They grow at least 3' a year and are deer resistant:
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