Its my AP's 10th year!! I think Ill have to end my yearly update for now as theres not much change thatll happen. If theres anything that changes in the future Ill post again. Last week I trimmed the lower 4 feet about more than a foot off, as its eating up precious space on my narrow side yard. then a few days later it exploded with fruit/seeds from top to bottom, thats why it looks yellow green in the pict. maybe not due to the trim but more likely the warm weather. the other side AP's werent as abundant. Something that I did back in 2014 when I just planted were to dig out all suckers & secondary leaders from all plants, leaving just a single trunk growing. they all looked like bamboo stalks at that stage . if your area doesnt get much snow & if you can risk the trees unravel from heavy snow load then dont remove them as they can help make the trees look fuller & dense. I gave 16 suckers to my neighbor, planting them in 2016 thats the 2nd pict. theyre growing really nicely from what i can see on the other side of the fence. other than that i hope all your AP's will become much fuller than what i have. I didnt have any problems with them & their fast growth is amazing.

'American Pillar' is a real survivor around New England and particularly on Cape Cod where it was sold by Mike Walsh at the beginning of the last century. Many of those plants are still going strong, most having done without fertilizer or care for almost a century. While the individual flowers are not in themselves particularly beautiful, that's clearly not the point. 'American Pillar' is a landscape plant and that was exactly the intention of Dr. van Fleet when he released this rose into commerce as one of the "dooryard" roses. It provides wonderful color in the landscape and 'American Pillar' is frequently seen growing up the sides of houses or sheds or tumbling over a stone wall or obliterating an ugly fence. I just planted an 'American Pillar' I collected in my neighborhood and I expect it to grow up the south side of my garden shed. Here is a link that might be useful:

Hi! I see you also posted here, please check out my post for you under conifer section if you havent done so. you might be alarmed by the color changes of this arborvitae.

Hi! there fellow New Jerseyan, Ive been growing American pillar arborvitae for 2 years now & im very happy with their growth, i have 44. You can see picts under "american pillar arborvite" here in gardenweb. From the 2 years ive been caring for these, ive never had major yellowing of leaves at the top of these trees. i do see yellowing at the base, the ones very close to the ground, only when theres heatwave after heatwave in our area, which means theyre burning. This summer 2016, i did double up on watering, which not only means heavy watering every single day, when theres no rain, but also giving all of them a shower from top to bottom every day. This helped a lot as they didnt yellow as much as they did summer of 2015. I planted my trees as soon as i got them in late june 2014. i got worried about the summer heat too, but was surprised to see that they grow so much in july than in any other months of the year. i think as long as you water right & put sufficient mulch, it will thrive. its actually very low maintenance - just water! I didnt put soil amendments nor fertilizers, just good old NJ dirt. Just to let you know since youre planting this fall. The first fall 2014 i had these trees, they all turn brown. I thought they all dried up & withered. But dont be scared bec theyll come back alive after the last frost in may. my last thought is, the trees that get half day sun do much better than the ones in full sun. So since yours are in pots & im assuming in full sun, & you said you water twice a week, you will definitely get burning on the leaves. trees on pots dry up faster & would need watering twice a day specially during a summers heatwave. its a lot of work, thats why i try not to leave any on pots. Hope this helps. in 2 years my pillars from 4-inch pots are now 5 feet tall, the ones from a quart size pots are 7 feet. Goodluck.