I'm looking for sky rocket or sky pencil seedlings. These are conifers. Anyone that has them and is willing to do a trade or for postage please contact me. Thanks Debbie

Yes same shrubs as planted last year. OK so the shrubs do need every leaf like a tree. I know I should not trim a tree until all leaves have developed, I was thinking along the same lines for the shrubs as they had dropped a lot of leaves. The trimming of brown tips was in reference to the branch tips not the leaves. Who in the world would have the time to trim each leaf? A few of the branches had tips browning and the browning seemed to be going down the branch, so trying to use common sense I trimmed only those individual branches down to the green. Those branches had new buds developing and now has buds at the trimmed tips. As for a clay bucket yes, you can create a container like conditions. I planted shrubs with shallow root systems so I choose to stop at two foot. I think it depends on how deep you dig, on what you are planting and you need to make sure you follow the standard recommendation on mixing in native soil in the back fill. I used a garden soil that had clay in the mix already. Plus the area dug out is about 11 ft long and width ranging from 21 inches to 5 ft, plus a smaller 2 ft wide 8 ft long area. Several of the shrubs are on a slight slope, although all were planted on a built up mounds. There should not be "container" conditions, there should be lots of room for excess water to flow away from the roots systems. We just got done with a rainy week and they are budding out like crazy right now. A lot of thought went into planting them just not a lot of chemicals. I confess, I have loved shrubs to death before, one of the reasons I did so little when I planted these last year. The garden area has been in place for 5 years and last year was the first time I had a mushroom explosion. Only things different was new shrubs and fresh mulch (which I remove and replace each year). I have searched the forum for info on mushroom blooms and mulch and have not found any similar experiences posted. So I replaced the last years mulch with a pine bark mulch this past weekend, I am hoping no mushroom explosion this year. Due to last years experience I will do an acid feeding, just earlier in the season then last year. They seem to be recovering however it is still a waiting game. I have read some problems will cause sudden death in late summer so I will post later this fall if they made it through the summer and so on, for anyone interested in these shrubs.

Probably something haywire with the planting soil, like extreme pH or nutrient situation. Likely would have done better planted into the existing soil, without modification (other than loosening) or replacement of existing soil.

Thanks for the comments. This dieback didn't occur during winter, it occurred during last summer after the gardener planted them. During the winter, I did get a little bit of winter leaf burn, but I trimmed off the leaves, and that damage was a lot less. OK, I will try pruning the dead stems down a little further. I have no other space to put them, actually, not sure what I would do with them if I took them out. If I put the 2 damaged ones right next to eachother I could perhaps get 1 full looking holly but that probably isn't good for the plants. That is a downspout nearby, yes. It empties into the pond, so fortunately doesn't flood the sky pencils. As for the A/C unit, it's been a while since we had it on but I think the hot air coming out of the unit mostly goes upward. That is a good point, though I didn't think about air coming out of the compressor potentially affecting these shrubs. I will evaluate this summer. (Last year my worries were all about the shrubs shortening the life of our A/C unit.... my thoughts were the other way around). Sounds like I need to be patient and there may be some hope for these hollies.... may be it will bother me less once I figure out what to plant in front of them