A rootball with hardened clay soil often means that the rootball's watering needs have been neglected. The best way to remove the dry hardened clay soil from a rootball is to first water the potted Thuja often enough for the clay in the pot to become softened. As soon as the clay softens simply remove the Thuja Green Giant from it's pot and wash away the clay from the root ball with a garden hose. If the clay soil in the root ball has not been completely softened, than only the outer edges of the rootball's soil which was softened will wash away. To proceed at that point, one would need to put the tree back in the pot and fill the sides, where part of the clay had been removed, with a good quality potting soil, so the exposed roots do not get too dry. Then resume watering the tree again in a manner and for the purpose of softening the rest of the clay. Once again remove the tree from the pot and use the garden hose to wash away the rest of the clay from the root ball. After accomplishing that, immediately soak the tree's bare roots for about 10 minutes or so in a good quality microbial plant food starter, which among other things stimulates good root growth and helps prevent transplant shock. Then immediately plant the tree in your hopefully better than clay garden soil. Please do not misunderstand my intent for giving the above explaination. Only those who do not already have clay soil should follow the above instructions. For those of you who have native clay soil, please be assured that Thuja Green Giant trees should grow nicely in your soil without removing the original clay rootball. It will be important for you to replace the proper moisture level for the trees's rootball, but it will also be important for you to make sure the slow draining clay soil where you plant the tree is not allowed to stay so saturated that the tree's roots decay. Those hand help soil moisture testers are good to use while trying to get these trees established. I have found that to be especially true in clay soils which drain very slowly. My soil tester has a range of 1-4. The Thuja's seem to suffer drastically if their root ball's moisture level stays at the 4 mark very long. I have found that they do best with the moisture maintained at the 2-3 levels on my soil moisture meter. My slowest growing Thuja green giant is plant in an area where the builder did not clean up his pile of sand. They simply leveled the area so that grass grows fine there, but the Thuja has grown only a few inches in the last year. I problably need to introduce some Black Cow compost into that sandy soil planting bed this fall. The only reason I have not done that before is my fear that the neighbor's invasive bermuda grass might take over the area. Hopefully, a root barrior installation will not be needed to prevent that from happening when I do mix in the compost.

I heard not to plant a green giant in a place where it's slope (don't like too moist, though soil has been fixed, and plant high, etc... b/c reportedly quite drought tolerant once established... is that more BS... It was on a place where it was catching water, and temporarily moved into pot, needs to be very temp... Also heard they fair miserably in compacted clay, another myth??? Plant high, find flare (That was fun, it was buried so so deep, extend whole wide, DONT ammend)... OBviously, the clay around roots needs loosened, mulched so feeders can grow out (the root prunings been done, the crap nursery soil washed off)... but i want some bigger feeders before ground gets too cold........... Do they care about acidic (more) or alkaline? more?? some say they are resistant to phyphorta (will I ever spell that right)?? the westerns only... we'll see... they do get deep tap, correct?? Amy

I vote the Nursery Industry puts 10-year on each tag and 50-year. This would help so many people. If a dwarf fruit tree i.e., written should state: "this tree may be maintained at any size thru the pruning process. Any tips for homeowners (even some landscapers, lol) should be clear. There should be a picture of a power line and a tree under it to with a RED 'X" over the tree. Now, elty....... the good news about Thuja (NOT ALL CONIFERS or TREES or SHRUBS) is that Thuja/arborvitae may be pruned to any shape, forever... because "they produce foliage on branches w/o foliage," do you understand? The best approach is to prune the foliage over and over again so you don't have to regenerate new foliage from "bare stems." A typical plant: Taxus cuspidata 'Capitata' is kept at any size you would like to to be kept at, and.... it grows naturally into a pyramidal shape, just the same as that arborvitae I provided a photo of, for you. I'll elaborate a little about growth but not a lot. Growth rate can accelerate and de-accelerate on any given species/cultivar. Typically in a plants juvenile years they accelerate as root mass is increased and they slow down at about age 12-15.........this is not always true though. Some plants may leap in growth from age 15-25 and begin to slow after they've reached 25+ years. There is no given formula for "everything." An example that will surely complicate your general thinking is a dwarf conifer. It begins as a graft and year one it's slow to produce growth. When years 3-5 come about it's now at it's "normal growth rate." However... as years 11+ come along it begins to grow faster! i.e. years 2-10 it may have grown exactly 3" a year w/o fail. When years 10+ or 11+ or somewhere in this range of time come along, it's very likely it will begin growing at twice the rate of its' early years........ the opposite of "juvenile growth spurts." This is complicated for you, I understand. What I do hope you are able to take from this is that you may prune an arborvitae/"Thuja" but pruning pines or spruce or firs are "totally different" - they DO NOT regenerate foliage from cuts made behind the visible buds. I'm going to stop here, so as to not overwhelm you. Dax This post was edited by gardener365 on Wed, May 14, 14 at 9:34

I planted one GG last year in Z8 Texas with drought of about 23" of rain for the year, no growth visible. This year is much wetter, and it has grown about 6". My impression is that it will do ok here once established but will not provide the advertised 3-4 ft. yearly growth. We have several 5 yr. old Leyland Cypress that suffered die-back and we watered to save those remaining. Saw several Leyland die last year in other settings around here. 23" rainfall is insufficient for them. Don't think they will survive well with much less than 32"/yr. How much rainfall do y'al get? Have you considered Arizona Cypress or Eastern Red Cedar? They are both able to survive on 23" of rainfall and make a nice screen.