I added 3 emerald green arborvitaes in June to an area that had a row of arborvitaes. Within 6 weeks one arborvitae completely di

Question

ed. Any suggestions???? Last year I planted 7 arborvitaes, 3 died over the winter. I am trying to make a natural screen to blockout an unsightly area. So I planted 3 more emerald green arborvitaes June. I had seen a show about amending the soil for arborvitaes if you have clay. The area is clay so we amended it with peat moss, provided a fertilizer, and watered them. Within 6 weeks one arborvitae completely died. The other two new ones look ok but questionable. The original remaining 4 look good.

Answer 1

Hm… They don’t really feed heavily, so the only thing that I could see happening is that the fertilizer was too strong, or possibly high in urea. This type of nitrogen is hard for plants to take up without the proper soil microbes to break it down into ammonia. I would add a proper mycorrhizae to the soil. A google search will provide many places to purchase this beneficial group of microbes.