I planted 50 leyland's 3 years ago. They were in the 5 gallon buckets, about a foot tall each. Now they are 12 to 14 feet tall. Not one has died, gotten cancer or been toppled. I live in Northwest Georgia. These trees have seen the most extreme weather our area has seen in years. Let me give some unsolicited advice, with all due respect. 1. Whether they are green giant or leyland or arbovitae of any kind: Make sure you know your soil, make sure you know your frost level, and make sure you PLANT AND WATER AND FERTILIZE them appropriately. If you don't have time to manage them, then don't plant them. 2. Plant them far away from structures you don't want them to grow into. i.e: fences, buildings, septic tanks, neighbors who hate their shade etc. 3. plant them double their pot width, ONLY to the top of the pot you bought them with and with 1/2 native soil and the other half conducive to your local weather and environment. Be prepared to tie them off with rope that have maybe some cut pieces of garden hose around the rope to keep them from choking and which will help keep them level in high wind times if you are in a high wind area. 4. Applying water and appropriate nutrients is huge, but easy. GG's and Leyland demand alot of water if on a slope with hard clay or dense soil. Down south if you are in red clay, then water them morning and night for the first month or two. If you are up north or in moist soil, once a week watering with any spronkler system is going to be ok, just dont overwater at night, stick to early mornings. I applied 10/10/10 in a circle about 1 foot out from the tree bole in early spring, and then again early summer, because my red clay is very acidic, hence the 10/10/10. Nice basic nutrients. 5. Don't flip out about the cancer issues that you might tend to google; you are planting a long term resource for shade and beauty and perhaps privacy, so pay attention to your trees....daily. If the branches are browning on the outside but green on the inside, that ok, it's just growth. If you see a ring around the trunk, then do some research, I won't go into detail here. Just watch your trees, and remember, if you are planting in a row or around fences/property, your soil may be very different from one side to the other. The pic below is a recent one of my Leyland's after 3 years. They started out at about a foot. This is in PACKED Georgia red clay with lots of rocks. You may experience some growtg difference, but if they look healthy, they are healthy. I must say: Your initial soil preparation is huge. Plant them well. The GG's and Leyland's have a tap root that if given proper care, will grow deep and delve for nutrients. Out of 50 planted not one has died or had a problem. I am not a tree doctor nor do I play one on TV. I am...a lover of oxygen.

My neighbor has three 2 ft over the property line. After about 15 years they are about 20 ft tall, 10 ft at the bottom, must have been planted with a spacing of 13 ft, because there is now a gap of 3 ft between them. The top seems to be not sharp, but rather plumb. It sounds like it would take them a long time to block that tall house. Perhaps after another 10 years they would be 35-40 ft tall and 20 ft wide. Branches seem to be weak, lost some last year due to ice. 6-8ft tall trees will probably have a good size root ball, I would assess their weight at the nursery and see if I can lift them, then it depends on transportation, i.e. how tough to get it in/out of a car trunk.

Hello again! so, I'm a little out of my depth here in discussing horticulture which takes place in Texas. That said, I don't think these guys look too bad. Yes, it is troubling to see the little dead branchlets and what's more, I have no definite idea on that. If you were up here somewhere, I'd expect actual physical injury, like wind or something, but that does not appear to be the case. So here's a few things you can do: Find a clean white sheet of paper, hold it under a branch which exhibits this browning, and shake vigorously. What you're trying to do is see what, if anything, falls onto the paper. This is especially useful if a spider mite problem is suspected. And I mention that because especially in a hot zone, that could account for some of this damage. Spider mites are tiny things, not insects but more closely related to spiders. But unlike our friendly eight-legged garden helpers, spider mites suck the juice out of plant leaves and stems. They can be controlled via a variety of fairly "soft" measures-knocking them out of the tree with strong stream of pressurized water, the use of insecticidal soaps or horticultural oils, and finally, there are some heavier-duty chemicals if these measures don't do it. But I'm not saying you have spider mites, just throwing that possibility out there. Also of concern in the south are insects called "bag worms". We don't have bag worms up here thankfully but I understand they can be quite the issue down south. So look into that, although I do not see the "bags" in the photos. Let's see, what else.....; You mention dogs, and dog pee-for whatever reason-seems to show up on arbs with regularity. It presents as blackened areas of foliage down low enough to where male dogs could lift their legs sufficiently high. There is at least some reason to think some of this damage could be due to that. But for the most part-believe it or not-these plants are doing okay. It just takes a while for the root system to build up to a point where the trees will really take off. I think that'll happen here eventually. What I do like to see is healthy growing tips-can't really call them buds on arbs-and yours appear to have healthy tips. that's where the future of the plants is and for the most part, it looks like yours are okay. +oM

Jim, your two photos above that shows a road right next to the trees. I am very curious how much growth each year these trees will do each year. Please keep us updated if you can. It appears you have some pretty large trees right next to or overhanging these small trees, so they must get a lot of shade throughout the day? I farthest from any tree expert here, but the more sun these guys get i think the more growth they show? I have some new ones i planted too that the sun will be blocked by other larger trees in the area during the middle summer months.