Stop using the miracle grow! Fertilize twice a year only! You have weak growth, now susceptible to pest attack as it is weak and easy prey. Huge mistake! Newly planted trees should not be fertilized until the 2nd year. Or give a super light dose in the spring. Granular like tree tone should be used. Synthetic fertilizers like miracle grow are great for potted culture, but in ground plants organic is a better method. Even in potted culture one should never give full strength, about 1/2 to 1/4 dose every watering, depending on how often you water. Organic in ground is better because it slowly releases as bacteria make nutrients available, and doesn't over feed the plant. Your plants BTW need full sun, like all day. Some of the discoloration could be from lack of sun. But feeding it every other week, will weaken the plants too. You don't even have to fertilize trees, but if you want to, fertilize in the spring before bud break. And in the fall after leaf fall. Light amount of organic granules only. Spread under the mulch. Usually one cup for every inch of diameter. If less than one inch, one cup, around the drip zone. See what directions say on Tree Tone or whatever "tree" fertilizer you choose. Tree fertilizer only! This post was edited by Drew51 on Mon, Sep 30, 13 at 23:34

Hmmm. No one ever talks about the microbes. Microbes make top soil unique - definitely not the same as sub soil. Microbes act as the interface between the organic material in soil and the plants. Plants will suffer in sterile soils, not matter how rich the soil is, without microbes - unless of course, the soil is treated with synthetic fertilizers and/or hormones. Plants in soil without microbes (and no fertilizers) will essentially starve. Dirt is not an appropriate synonym for top soil. The two are quite different things. Top soil is almost impossible to store, as the microbes require oxygen. The oxygen only penetrates a few inches in the best of soils, to about 8 inches max. Heavy soils can have top soils that are only fractions of an inch deep, or even none at all. Deprive the microbes of oxygen, and the microbes die in hours. Plastic-bagged, manufactured top soil, will not have appropriate conditions for microbes to survive if they were ever present. Even true top soil, if harvested through grading and stored in piles, will only be true, healthy top soil on the top few inches of the mound. Within hours all of the microbes below the top layer of the mound will have died. True top soil is a living thing. Top soil needs to be harvested and properly placed in a very short period of time. Take a yard of dirt (or at least a good pile) from below the top soil, mix it with fertilizer-free compost, mound it up in a remote area of your yard and watch what happens - nothing. Nothing will grow on that pile, even though it is dirt amended with compost, because it essentially sterile. After one to two years, the microbes will begin to permeate the top layer of the pile and plants will start to show up. With true top soil, the mound would explode with plants after the first rain. Manufactured mixes "cheat" by stuffing the created mix with fertilizers. This works, but is lousy for the environment in many ways, and "hooks" your plants on synthetic fertilizers like drugs. When you hear such names as Monsanto, Miracle Gro, etc. think "pusher". Microbes do not like synthetic fertilizers, so once using fertilizers, you are stuck using them unless you do a lot of work to fix the situation, or wait until the soil regains a proper ecological balance. Plants will grow well in many types of media, even water, if given proper aeration and proper nutrition, i.e. fertilizer. But this is needlessly expensive and again, potentially problematic for our environment. True top soil is magic. It's ecology is wonderfully complex and is only barely beginning to be understood. No manufactured mix will do what true top soil can do for your garden. Growing plants really needs to be thought of first as growing your soil. True top soil, air, and water are vital to most life forms on Earth. We would all starve without true top soil, unless we were able to subsist on fungi. Labeling requirements for growing mixes are virtually non-existent. Those ingredients that might be listed will be very vague. Notice that no synthetic fertilizers are listed, even if they are there in quantity. Anyone can sell any dirt as topsoil, and people often do as a means to avoid disposal fees for dirt. Get top soil from people removing their raised beds, those who have graded the top few inches of an area, people taking out lawns, etc. or from your own backyard. If there are unused areas of your yard that support a dense mat of weeds, at least during wetter, warmer months, then that is true top soil. Yes there will be weeds, but a good mulch will take care of most of that problem. My advice to any gardener is to start with good top soil, nurture that soil by continually adding organic material, worm castings and compost tea, and use a good mulch. These items are 80-90% of the battle for the vast majority of plants.

Fertilizing a perennial when it's looking stressed-out is normally not recommended since the plant is distressed for a reason that could be unrelated to what fertilizer may help correct. There may be a number of other reasons the plant appears to be suffering that are unrelated to soil conditions. Healthy soil + the appropriate amount of sun/shade/water generally are more important than fertilizer. I don't fertilize my established perennial beds. The perennials I grow are sited in their optimal growing locations and for the most part allowed to thrive on their own. All my astilbes are situated in either full or part shade and allowed to pretty much survive as best they can given the amount of rain that falls in any given season. Some years they fry, other years they thrive, but they always survive to return the following season. At least in my zone, they appear to be virtually indestructible. One final observation--all my astilbes have grown to barely half their usual size this season, along with my bleeding hearts, while my normally-medium-sized hostas are double their usual size. It's been my experience that gardening is consistently not consistent from one year to the next.

It's been 8 months since my last post. The WESTERN Hemlock looks as bad as any Eastern Hemlock I've tried. I will try to get pics. I purchased a scoop of forest soil from a neighbor with a pretty old forest around him. The soil was once in these woods. He cleared a dirt road through it so any fungi's etc should be present. It's been in a pile for a while. I will make a mound and try another Eastern Hemlock. I have one for around $20.00 from Ebay 2 ft tall, it has yet to arrive, I ordered it July 9 th I think.. I will try to plant it high but not too high. If it fails, I am stumped. I have read that Whooly adelgid can be controlled with sprays, is that true? If I don't get the one from ebay, I'll be collecting cones from those up the mountains. Musser Forests are sold out.