well.. i am still embarrassed.. lol ... but his plot still remains 10 feet wide.. and he states he wants to start with small seedlings .. which i read as minor investment .. and a lot of these suggestions are for very expensive grafts of cultivar trees ... perhaps the best suggestions is 10 de groots ... with named cultivars in between .. something like this, with D as de groots and N as named cultivar: D - D - D - N - D - D - N - D - D - N - D - D - D 13 plants over 30 feet ... which might a couple too many .... so lop off two degroots at each end ... and dont forget.. they dont all have to be on the same line.. set the 3 named ones.. 2 feet closer into the yard ... no one said a sight block need be planted right on the property line ... i do like his gut feeling to diversify ... and i would like to entice a new collector of cultivars .... but if he wants cheap in volume.. he is going to have to go mail order ... and the suggested placement.. will diversify [presuming they are not all arbs] ... have some formality.. and frankly.. look pleasant.. nothing bugs me more than a formal line of all the same thing ... i think i redeemed myself.. lol ken

Hi Iandad. Hole twice as wide as ball is a good guideline. Depth of hole should be such that the root flare is at or slightly above finished grade. Use no soil amendments unless you are willing and able to amend the entire eventual root run of the tree(s). In other words, don't do it! For best results, do mulch with wood chips, shredded bark, or other organic material. Do not pile this mulch up against trunk of tree though. Make sure that when watering, you are getting original rootball soaked as well as surrounding soil. +oM

Novaplantguy Great plant. I bought one that size for cheap last summer at Menards. I planted it last fall and it's doing well this spring so far. I also plant a few of my conifers in the gritty mix and have had pretty good luck so far. I did lose a couple last year, but it was before I found the below info on repotting evergreens. I was treating evergreens like decidous trees/shrubs... Sorry, for not putting up the link. I cut and pasted this from an email I sent myself after I found it last fall. "RE: Trees in Containers Posted by tapla z5b-6a MI (My Page) on Mon, Apr 14, 08 at 20:06 Generally speaking, the more natural genetic vigor a plant has, the better it tolerates root-pruning, but then comes along a plant like bougies that ARE vigorous but don't tolerateroot work well. That they (evergreens) do or don't tolerate it well, doesn't negate their need for root maintenance though, so I'll describe the safe way to root-prune the evergreens. The first time you do root work on your plant, and after depotting, remove the bottom 1/4 - 1/3 of the root mass with a pruning saw. You aren't going to bare root the evergreens, unless you know they tolerate it well. Instead, remove the soil from 3 pie-shaped sections from the remaining roots. These sections should be conservative in size the first time you undertake the pruning (until you're able to gage tolerance) and should only remove about 1/3 - 1/2 of the remaining roots. Concentrate on removing the larger roots in the wedges and leaving the smaller roots. Buttress roots remain. Add soil to the bottom of the new container so the tree will sit at an appropriate height and fill the wedges with soil. Use a wooden chopstick to settle the soil firmly around the roots & water well. Firmly securing the plant to the container to prevent movement of the plant in relationship to the container will fractionalize reestablishment time by preventing wind breakage of fine rootage. The next time you work on the roots, concentrate on cutting wedges from the oldest part of the soil/root mass, away from your most recent efforts. In this way, you can replace the old rootage & soil in 2 or 3 sessions over several years while keeping your tree root-healthy. The equivalent work on the above ground parts of shrubs/bushes would be called cyclic rejuvenation pruning, which is basically removing 1/3 of the stems (trunks) of a multi-trunked shrub/bush each year and concentrating on the most vigorous (removing the largest). This type of pruning completely rejuvenates the shrub over 3 years & insures the wood remains young and vigorous." I agree with Ken, keep it in the shade for a while. The SE corner of your home probably isn't that bad? The hot afternoon sun is what is really damaging for most plants that are newly potted. A shade cloth might help? Who cares what your neighbors think...

Cut out the dead one and inspect for boring holes; A leader will form, possibly more than one. Before you hack off the others look at them and graduate their side branching habits to give your newly selected leader some more growth (like pinching any plant to control directional-growth - roses are the supposed "art" of pruning when all in fact you're doing is looking at the plant and seeing which direction the buds are going to grow)... So, you elimiante any buds/branches that are going to cross into the tree interior and keep those that will grow outward and up. The rest of those you would remove the "top" of the branch with all the strong growth. Give it a try. I spent about 45 minutes on a 3 foot tall Picea mariana in a 5 gallon pot that looked like a sheared little christmas tree, with TWO leaders comprising the enitire height where basicall half of the tree was one leader and the other side was another leader. That thing looked like a perfect single leader when I was done. It's not a 5-minute job by any stretch of the imagination. Not only was it balanced I created a tree that had gaps, now it can breathe instead of suffocate itself to an eventual death. I must have completely removed over 65% of the material on it, mostly entire branches. Most of those 100% dead. The thing looked like a solid chunk of wood under all those sheared needles. You wouldn't believe the difference after I was finished. Dax