Although the damage to these plants is above-average in severity, yes, it's fairly normal for cherrylaurel to sustain a bit of leaf damage in some winters. This is called winterburn, and it happens when the plant cannot replace moisture lost to evaporation fast enough, such as in winter cold snaps where the soil surface moisture is frozen and inaccessible to roots. As a result, leaf tips or sometimes larger portions of leaves (or entire leaves) desiccate and turn brown and brittle. Our several occurrences of very mild weather followed closely by rapid chilling caused many kinds of evergreens to become damaged this past winter. If the soil was not moist enough due to low rain/snowfall, this can worsen the degree of damage or make plants more vulnerable to winterburn.

The injured leaves will eventually be shed by the plant (since they cannot heal), especially since new growth is about to begin after the flowers fade. Cherrylaurel blooming doesn't last very long so you might see new foliage emerging in the next couple of weeks. Branch tips that don't leaf-out along with the rest, especially if they also have brown leaves (or no leaves), are likely dead and can be trimmed off at that time. Our weather has been quite dry so far this season, so monitor the plants for watering needs by feeling the soil. If it's becoming somewhat dry to the touch six inches down, watering is probably needed. If damp when probed at that depth, then the plants are probably ok for the time being. We're forecast to get rain Saturday, but you can still check the plants a few days later to see if it indeed seeped-in deeply enough to rehydrate roots.

Make sure mulch isn't touching the stem bases and just monitor the plants for signs of new growth. No fertilizer is needed, nor is any type of spray. If new growth does not appear by mid-May or so, the roots might not have established well after planting and recovery will be slower or poor. If tangled/matted when the pots were removed, were the roots loosened upon planting? If not, this can hamper establishment and make it easier to over- or under-water a plant as the two soil types inside and outside the root ball do not absorb or drain moisture evenly or equally well.

In general, cherrylaurel is a tough evergreen, so as they mature, future instances of winterburn could be less damaging or less of an eyesore. We see a minor amount of what could be Cherry Shot Hole disease, a very common ailment among cherry trees and their cherrylaurel cousins, but often it does not warrant treatment in home landscapes and does not look serious here. Avoid wetting leaves when watering to reduce the risk of spread for this pathogen's spores. (You can't do anything about rain or dew wetting leaves of course, but by not over-pruning plants into super-dense forms as the shrubs grow larger, this will also keep the risk of severe infection low.)

Miri