Q: A row of ‘Bradford’ pears once provided shade halfway down a bank on which juniper was planted. Now the pears have been reduced in size. The juniper roots start high up the bank but the foliage doesn’t appear until where the original shade stopped. Will greenery sprout higher up the roots now that sun is available?

A: Unfortunately, the junipers will not resprout foliage in the area where it died out. To add further insult to injury, if you mulch over the roots they may get stem rot from the higher humidity under the mulch layer. One option to consider is planting an evergreen groundcover, like creeping raspberry, among the juniper roots to mask their unruliness. The only other solution is to remove the existing junipers and plant new ones.