Nature Note:Deadwood

I've been cutting deadwood out of my Leyland cypress trees.I just cut the brown parts out and leave the rest of the dead branches for the birds to perch on.I had let it go for a while,but it got to an unsightly extreme.The cause of the browning is unknown.It could be a parasite or just dryness-or even both.Recent summers have seen a number of droughts.The Leyland cypress is from a hybrid of the Nootka and Monterey cypresses that occurred naturally in an English garden.It is used for a Christmas tree in the southern U.S. and very widely planted for a fast-growing screen.