I am going to look into the warranty just wasn’t sure how long to wait to see if it starts to improve. Any clue as to what’s wrong with it or a solution?

when planted last year.. how did you plant them.. how did you water .. do you recall if they were potbound with roots ...

is there plastic under the rocks? .. or landscape cloth??

what direction does the house wall face??? ..do winter winds blow around that corner???

is everything else in the yard.. basically showing spring growth???

do look into the warranty.. and talk to yoru seller ... if that doesnt work .. we will prune the heck out of it ... take away all the dead.. and you can see what happens this summer with growth ...

if we can figure out what happened.. and remedy that.. it is a willow.. and should grow like a rocket ..

they are a bit close to the house for their potential ... and in the future.. you are going to have to learn how to aggressively prune.. to keep them whatever size yo wish.. not that big a deal ...

ken

note differing sizes.. and understand that the smaller versions [not the babes] are probably pruned to keep them smaller ...

https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffcm&q=Dappled+Willow+%27Hakuro-nishiki&iax=images&ia=images

I do not recall the roots however I know to break them up. Last year I watered every other day. It is landscaping cloth. That wall faces north. It could be possible for wind to blow around that corner with could affect the problem bush. Yes everything else is blooming as normal with new shoots or buds. As far as pruning that is my next step wasn’t sure how soon to cut the dark branches. I do plan on keeping them small. I cut them twice last year.

Yes: it's something that happened to the one and not the others, so if they have all been getting the same treatment from the start it would not be a problem with the culture. Willows can be prone to disease problems so you might want to do a search for that topic.

Otherwise if you are planning to keep them as small as they are now do realize that the genetic blueprint for this plant calls for them to grow much larger than this. So a time may come where the discrepancy between what they want to do and what you want them to do may become an issue.

Did you try scratching the bark to see if it’s green or brown?

Those are too big of plant for that location by the way. They grow aggressively to 6’ in just a couple years. You’ll be fighting them like no end. Even if you cut them back the caliper of the branches gets thicker and thicker.

Neighbor is Menomonee Falls had one they didn’t cut back and it was 12’ x 15’.

Looked impressive in spring.

Shrub willows like this are very commonly stooled or coppiced to the ground each season. That keeps size in check (so yes, it CAN be grown in that space) and intensifies the stem coloration as well.

Here in the PNW where darn near everything grows faster and bigger than most other places, these are easily kept to about 4'x4' by coppicing every year in late winter or early spring.

Surprisingly they grow more aggressively here. I had three that I fought for 5 years. You literary have to get a hand saw out to cut them back. Not easy trust me!

By the way they grow to 6 or 7’ in the same season after cutting them close to the ground. Not sure sure that would be appropriate for a foundation plant. You‘d have to cut it back multiple times a year to keep it to 4’

Arctic Blue is another crazy growing cultivar. I planted this one as a foundation plant big mistake when I went to dig them out they had 4 inch caliper roots approaching the foundation

Arctic blue willow is a common name, the usual offering is 'Gracilis' under the synonym 'Nana'.