sure....

track back... to a branch that has green.. and cut out the dead part ...

but that isnt really the question ... which is about your fuzzy head...

will it drive you insane for the next few years???

it will never catch up.. i wouldnt care ... a little height diversity in a line of soldiers is ok in my unfuzzy head ...

so if its a head issue.. get another ... especially if there is a warranty

it looks like it is the one on the end....the original insult was either shipping/handling damage.. someone grabbed it and tugged it off or on a truck or car ... and then on the end of the line.. i suspect there were some proper watering issues...

put the hose on trickle and give it a long deep drink.. subject to your soil drainage ... planting conifers/trees is not a lawn sprinkler thing ....

review the link.. especially in regard to proper watering.. and mulch .... it should not be hard to succeed in planting conifers... if you follow a few basic rules...

you have a multiple leader plant there... it will be a future issue with snow or ice load.. but i dont know if that is an issue for you in your z6 .... i might.,. since we are going after it anyway.. remove one of those leaders ... but i am not sure on that... maybe we should give it a year.. before we cut off half of its leaves ... needles ...

you are not considered a green thumb.. until you kill every plant 3 times.. then you know how to make it live.. sounds like you are getting up to speed with arbs.. lol ... dont worry about it... in my collection of 600 conifers.. you dont want to see my kill list.. live and learn ...

good luck with the new house....

ken

Here is a link that might be useful: link

Mrsfox, what high desert environment are you in so we can look up your environmental extremes. Or I guess another way of answering is, do you see rows if green giants growing wellaround town?

To answer your original question, yes you can cut out the dead part and the tree will fill in.

emerald greens, rick ...

aka Thuja occidentalis "Smaragd,"

not that it matters.... though GG isnt occidentalis ...

but otherwise.. an arb is an arb ... as far as this issue goes ....

ken

Ken, thanks for your input. It's actually not on the end, I will attach a few more pictures (wish I could attach more than one per post). Will it ever catch up after they all grow to max height? I guess I could always transplant it to the end and bring the end one into it's place. I planted these for privacy since, as you can see, my neighbor's living room window, kitchen window, and back porch all have a great view of my house and yard. I also wanted a sound barrier since we hear everything they do (their windows are always open). Thanks for the link, I will take a look at it. :) I was definitely devastated when the first trees died...it was a lot of work. I'll post some pictures of that catastrophe too...you will also see my "new lawn" that I had planted in the fall and did not know to put pre-emergent weed killer on it...paid for that big time too.

Toronado, in the winter we *can* get down to -5, but normally it stays in the teens and 20's in the coldest months. In summer we *can* get up to 100, but our average highest temps are in the high 80's to mid-90's. Does that help? I don't see many arbs around town, but the few hedges I have seen seem to be doing well. I am starting to think that unless the owner gives the plants proper watering they just don't survive, since we get very little annual rainfall. Might be why I don't see many where I live, but the ones I do see look nice.

Sequoiadendron, thanks! I wasn't sure if it would just be a gaping hole forever. Do they send up new leaders?

Picture below is my first set of trees this spring and my horrendously weedy new lawn...

This post was edited by mrsfox on Thu, Oct 17, 13 at 5:23

Dead trees and weedy yard!

New trees...I think you can see the dead tip of the one I am asking about about mid-way down the line, near the corner of my house.

Another shot of the new trees and my yard, which I think I got under control as far as the weeds are concerned...

One more shot of the arbs from the end, back towards the house. Just finished mulching a couple of weeks ago.

Will it ever catch up after they all grow to max height?

==>>> as trees... they have no max height... they grow.. until they fail .. for me.. that would be a bad snow/ice storm ... in a decade or two ...

second pic defines the problem ... ALL THE ONES ON THE DECLINE FAILED.... due to a failure of proper watering ... it ran off before soaking in thru the whole root zone ...

you should have.. isnt hindsight great.. lol ... either.. dug moats with a high side wall on the low side hill to water by hand .. to hold say 5 gallons of water ... so it could soak into the root mass you planted ...... or uses drip irrigation ..

and i do NOT consider soaker hose.. properly engineered irrigation ... the plain old soaker hose.. from my recollections/and failures ..... is not engineered to compensation for rise nor fall of the hose.. and i quit using it.. because it is not engineered for equal pressure along the whole run ... meaning the far end doesnt get the same water applied as the closer end ..... can i guess the hill was on the far end of the run????

i would NOT MOVE A STRESSED PLANT in the hopes it will recover ... get over it as to them being identical .... or simply replace it .... and if you do replace it ... then move it elsewhere.. as you wont care if it dies somewhere else ...

too bad you didnt find us prior to the project ... eh???

ken

I have to backtrack a little and explain that when I planted the first set of trees, I was a COMPLETE newbie. I did not even have the soaker hose down at that point. I was watering them by hand about once a week thinking that would be enough. The soaker hose is that flat fabric kind and I've got two of them connected to a "Y" at the edge of my house...one length that goes down the side of the house is 25 feet, the other length goes toward the yard 50 feet. Together they make a 75 foot run and I read that a length under 100 feet should not be an issue where equal pressure is concerned...am I wrong? There is no "incline" along the length where the water ever has to go uphill, that is an optical illusion. From where the water enters the hose it only goes downhill slightly. I've been using this soaker hose all summer and it seems to do the job well, although I had to use it every day since I did not have time to put mulch down until this fall. I am thinking the reason the first batch died was from obvious lack of water before going into winter and then drying out by spring. Also not having mulch might have been a factor since we got down to -5 last winter. I have a hunch that the drying winds knocked out most of them, since my few survivors were the ones next to the house where they are somewhat protected. Which leads me to another question...

What do you think of Wilt-Pruf? Could I prevent some dessication by using it? I was going to go with burlap but that is an awful lot that I would need to wrap...do these even need protection from wind if they get enough water before winter?

I think in the spring I will move the one arb with the dead branch to the end of the line and replace it so I can keep the height I have going in that area (I need it there! I don't think want a window in my hedge..haha).

Together they make a 75 foot run and I read that a length under 100 feet should not be an issue where equal pressure is concerned...am I wrong? There is no "incline" along the length where the water ever has to go uphill, that is an optical illusion. From where the water enters the hose it only goes downhill slightly. I've been using this soaker hose all summer and it seems to do the job well

===>>> give us a name or a pic of the actual hose ...

never heard of the 100 foot rule ...

anything other than flat .. on a hose that is not internally pressure compensating.. will NOT provide uniform water along the whole length ..... in august.. you ought to have gone a dug a hole with a hand trowel .. and found out.. if there was any water.. down in the root mass you planted ...

in z6 ... cold was not an issue for these arbs.. IF THEY WENT INTO WINTER PROPERLY WATERED ...

sorry.. IMHO.. it a watering issue.. and we havent even breached proper planting ...

see link ... about the various variables in planting trees.. of which conifers are ...

ken

Here is a link that might be useful: link

when dealing with an engineered drip tube/hose ... length is a function of the pressure or the water put into it ...

to generally say... 100 feet ... when you think about it.. means nothing ...

i use the stuff at the link ... on hills ... on the surface.. and it can be reused as the tree matures ..

these arbs.. should really only need water for a year or two.. while they get established ....

being out in farmland USA i actually have a local sales man ...

all you need would be a connector to a spigot.. unless you have a well.. and then a 15$ filter helps ...

and let me be clear... if you do want to talk to someone on this stuff.. winter is the time to get personal service.. if you wait until crop season ... it will be very hard to get someones attn for your tiny project ...

there is a website called dripworks.com ... of which i never used ....

ken

Here is a link that might be useful: more than you ever want to know about it.. lol ... the important info comes around the 3 minute mark ...

Thank you for your help Ken, I will probably switch out my soaker hose in the spring for a dripline. I was thinking of doing the drip hose first, but then I just went with the soaker hose because it was easier and the drip looked more complicated. I will check out the dripworks website. Thanks again for the help! :)

I think your lawn needs as much, if not more attention than the arborvitae.

1. The arborvitae are way too close together. When they grow to be larger, they will suffocate...

2. Are you not planning to extend them around the fence, or as is? Sodding your whole hard would have been the better choice.

3. Arborvitae are not the most attractive looking choice, however, they are a good choice in hiding the fence.

4. Please post updates pictures of the yard currently.

5. You could dig up all of them, purchase all new ones, and return the old ones in the containers of the new. Is that the more ethical thing to do? Probably not, but the alternative is having an ugly backyard or spending another 700 dollars on more arborvitae that will most likely die again(your yard soil isn't draining enough for them. That or they are getting zero water. I also can assume you do not have a water irrigation sprinkler system, by the looks of the grass...

5. I hope you seal/stain your fence, because if you don't, it will turn gray. Use Cabbot transparent stain. It's expensive, but amazing outcome. And please don't choose teracotta; is a dated color choice.

WOW!! Lot of strong opinions in this last post and some of them rather personal (who says terra cotta is 'dated'? is there some kind of stain color police out there?).

And for what it's worth, standard spacing for 'Smaragd' arborvitaes for a privacy screen or hedge is 2-3'. Looks right on the money to me.

Since the original post is approaching two years old, how likely the OP is going to read and head these opinions - should he/she be so inclined - is a bit moot.