I have a small nursery stock Cedra of Lebanon (Cedrus Libani) in development. I potted it on this spring and noticed that as the new flush came in, it dropped all its old needles. The tree looks happy although the new needles are thin, I’m just wondering if anyone else has found this of if it is a symptom?
I also have a blue cedar and a green one which don’t do this.
One of my blue atlas cedars did this as well this spring. I believe the root work was enough that the tree could not support both the old needles and the new shoots. We had a wet spring so I figured the soil might be a bit wet so I protected it from the rain and watched the watering. It is back on the bench and is doing well, although still a little weaker than the others.
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My neighbour has a huge one in her garden and it drops its needles continually, mostly into my garden and onto my bonsai.
Maybe it’s a natural Cedar thing.
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I agree they tend to shed needles all year long with a time or two of higher rate, but Andy and I both saw loss of nearly every old needle as the new ones pushed after a repotting which is not normal behavior.
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That makes three of us 
Except it’s a nursery stock Atlas cedar in my case. I waited until the buds started to open before repotting, as I expected it to drop needles. I got the timing right, and it is now happily extending.
A friend of mine repotted his nursery stock Atlas cedar a few weeks before mine and it didn’t recover.
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