ARBORVITAES

Hi everyone, I'm new to this site and need some direction. I am on my second round of planting arborvitaes in my back yard. The first trees (20) were planted in April of 2005 along with new sod. I watered like the dickens - I believe that was the summer we had the drought in July/August. By that time, the arborvitaes were showing yellowing leaves from the inside out. I kept up my watering (my water bill was $300!) to insure my new trees and sod. They became more yellow and by September it looked like someone took a live wire to them. The nursery took them back - or shall I say gave me credit for 8 new trees - saying they died from underwatering. Won't get into my persistance that I showed them water bill, etc. (BTW - my lawn service guy did the buying, planting, etc.). I waited almost a year before we picked up my new arborvitaes to plant (Aug 2006). Within the time I was arborvitae-less, I did a soil test and tried to find out how I could better prepare my sod for new plantings - read up, etc. The PH was 7.7 - other local nursery suggested aluminum sulfate - so I spread a 50lb bag and tilled (that was spring 2006). My soil has mucho clay. I also added some top soil and mulch. Next expected question - did I re-test the soil? No - stupid me! When the second round was planted, I asked my guy to take the trees out of the burlap bag before planting and to add peat moss and a jump start fertilizer - he did not. My friend and I dug them out, removed the burlap and twine, dug the holes deeper, added the peat moss and fertilizer. It is now February and I can see the yellowing going on again - from the inside - not too much though, they still look good from a distance. Another maybe helpful piece of info, I had tons of moths last year and put down grub control. My new sod did not look good last year, however I have many trees, which have since had their canopy raised.
Sorry for the long story, but I am tired of throwing my money and efforts away and need help. Hopefully with more sun, everything will look better. Thanks in advance for your input!

Hi, lainimoo, and welcome to DG. I'm also relatively new here and to gardening, so hopefully some of the more expert members will chime in with advice. Meanwhile, there was a thread a while ago that talked about buildup of needles suffocating conifers:

http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/657730/

Don't know if this is the problem you're experiencing, but might be worth looking into until others join the thread.

I'm not a tree expert either especially on conifer type trees...but here's my thought. I'm wondering if the first set didn't maybe get too much water, rather than too little. Young plants that don't have well established roots can only absorb so much water out of the soil, so adding more water than what they can absorb (which you may have done if you were watering them constantly) means that the roots are sitting there constantly in wet soil, which can cause problems for the plant (the symptoms of overwatering are often similar to underwatering). And if those first trees were also planted in holes that were amended with something, you can also create problems--when you have clay soil and you amend just the planting hole for a tree/shrub, the plant's roots can tend to stay in the nicely amended loose soil rather than spreading out into the clay soil, this can increase your chances of overwatering the plants. These two effects (the young roots not being able to absorb a ton of water and the "clay pot" effect) can combine to cause real problems for plants that were planted and didn't have time to get established before hot summer weather comes in--the roots aren't really able to take up enough water during the day to keep the plant happy, then you feel like the plant needs more water because it's been hot and it's not looking happy, but the clay keeps the water from draining away from the roots as well as it could and the roots aren't capable of absorbing all that water, so the plant sits there with wet feet. So that's one possibility, but I'm much more familiar with broadleaf evergreens, so there are probably 50 other things that could cause your arborvitae to turn brown that I don't know about!

ecrane3 is right on about overwatering in clay soil. I would like to add a note of caution about using aluminum sulfate to lower Ph. Aluminum eventually builds up in the soil and becomes toxic to the roots. Better to use garden sulphur or ammonium sulfate. Use the latter with caution as it is a fertilizer and you don't want to over fertilize any newly planted tree or shrub. If you can't find these products at your local garden center they are available online from various vendors. The links provided are for information only. I have never used either vendor. I have used and do use both products. http://www.espoma.com/content.aspx?type=p&id=31&intCategoryID=2
http://www.maconfeedandseed.com/index.php/cPath/229

Hang in there lainimoo, you will get your landscape going. It just takes time.

Thanks everyone, very helpful info! I think Ecrane, you are right, because I watered sooooo very much and not even properly - the arbors received their drink from the high rotaing sprinklers (trying to get everything wet!). I also read the thread you provided me Spartacus and wow - so much to learn. Thinking when the weather breaks I'll remove the browing inner needles. Thank you. Snapple, yes, the local nursery did tell me about the toxicity build-up. I will check out your links. Thanks!
I also started going through the soil and composting forum where I saw clay soil and I got some good ideas. I appreciate the encouragement, really, since I've been in this little house for 5 years and almost ready to go to Chicago and rent a cement house!

lanimoo welcome to DG! I have clay soil and while I've never had it tested, it's a safe bet that it's on the high side. I think ecrane is right on about the overwatering, and that you should not amend the planting hole in clay.

Now if you have a large bed that you are amending with compost or well-composted manure, and then after planting and watering in, you top dress with a couple of inches of bark mulch, that is entirely different. Any trees planted in this bed would indeed be happy campers. But then you've eliminated the bathtub effect of only amending the planting hole. This is one of the few ways I would recommend doing it. Whatever you do, do not ever, ever add sand. Sand + clay = cement.

I'm not so sure you would ever need to fertilize a tree, but if you did, it would be really important to improve the water holding capacity of the soil first. Which you should be working on every year now, twice a year, by adding a layer of compost and a top-dressing of organic mulch, every spring and fall.

Arbs like alkaline soils, so there is no need to alter the soil pH for them. When planting a tree, dig the hole twice as wide as deep, just deep enough to support the rootball. If you break up the soil a little, leaving clods the size of your fists, that's fine. Making clay too fine compounds the problem. Maybe throw in a few handfuls of perlite, this acts like a soil conditioner, or some calcined clay, like Turface®. Clay soils actually are really good at holding moisture and nutrients, they're just too dense, so they need stuff in them to get the water and goodies passed around. So adding things that increase air space is really all that is necessary.

Arborvitaes actually do well in clay soil. I wouldn't amend the soil at all. Since clay tends to hold water, you probably over watered them. After living in TN with clay soil and chert, I would say that what I learned was to work with the soil that the land had and not alter it in any way. To find plants that don't mind the clay. I wouldn't add any perlite or calcined clay. IMHO, you don't need to add things that increase air space, but you do need to learn to work with the soil you have. You and your plants will be much happier.

Maybe not for an arborvitae, but wouldn't the perlite or calcined clay help if you wanted to grow something that needed better drainage? If you were going to add anything at all, my point was, and I see I didn't make it very well, was that the amendments that would be desirable would be chemically inert or pH neutral ones, for the express purpose of aiding drainage. Adding compost and organic mulches is one way to increase the workable amount of topsoil.

What is chert?

edited to say not necessary, but desirable, and also to clarify my earlier statement which is a horticulturally sound practice, but to take out the words ever or never or only.

This message was edited Mar 6, 2007 11:50 AM

The form of chert varies geologically from region to region where it it occurs. It is also known as flint. The indians made hide scrapers and arrowheads from it. I found a flint scraper in my perennial garden. Next week after spring break I am heading to the local university to get it identified. It looks like so many in the identification books that I have no idea what indian group or period it belongs to. I also, drum roll please, think I found a meteorite in the same garden. The rock and mineral field guides all point to the same conclusion, so my trip to the U next week is also to the geology department as well as the archeology dept. If it is a meteorite Ebay here I come. If it isn't I have a real neat paper weight.



This message was edited Mar 6, 2007 4:25 PM

Snapple - you and DH have a lot in common, he is always finding arrowheads and keeps hoping to find meteorites. He took them to this guy that does meteorite research and analysis and they weren't, alas. Good luck!



This message was edited Mar 5, 2007 11:37 PM

My point is, if you learn to plant things in the native soil you have, your plants will do much better. No babying of plants required. No adding this or that to get a different type of soil than what you have.

Yes! That is by far the best approach. Here's what I hope turns out to be a helpful link. ;-)

http://www.extension.umn.edu/yardandgarden/ygbriefs/h408claysoil.html

And here is another link explaining the purpose and use of soil amendments.

http://hcs.osu.edu/hcs/webgarden/Land/LAND_Oct96.html

Lastly, here's a link that indicates that you've chosen a tree that should do very well on your native soil, without amendments, if planted correctly and not overwatered. Good luck!

http://www.aboutarborvitae.com/

This message was edited Mar 6, 2007 11:59 AM

This message was edited Mar 6, 2007 12:40 PM

Well either I've got a true meteorite (achnodrite with magnetic properties) or lithic tuff. My understanding is that true lithic tuff does not have magnetic properties. I think it would be foolish though to get my hopes up.

As for the real purpose of this thread - lainimoo's arborvitae, I know they will grow in a Ph from 6 to 8, a pretty wide range. I have to say that I couldn't grow anything but native prairie plants if I didn't copiously amend the excessively sandy soil here. Luckily I have an unlimited supply of oak leaves. I have composted, amended and mulched for 30 years this year. Some beds initially were double dug to a depth of two feet. It makes a huge difference. I wouldn't have done it any other way. Sandy soil IS easier to bring to a condition of moisture retentative loam than clay soil is. But the process is the same and the benefts are well worth it.

Yes, for the purposes of this thread, terryr and I are on the same page. There should be no good reason to have to amend clay soil with a higher pH level for an arborvitae.

Unless your drainage stinks, which may have more to do with what's been taken away than what's been added, in the relatively recent past. That's all I was saying.

Now if you want to grow anything besides natives, as you said snapple, amendments are called for, in some form or another.

Here's the latest on meteorite crashes in IL.

http://www.kptv.com/news/11181968/detail.html

adding a link to most recent crash near my neck of the woods.

http://www.psrd.hawaii.edu/Aug04/ParkForest.html



This message was edited Mar 6, 2007 4:10 PM

Arborvitaes do fine in poor drainage.

The amendments issue is another one that can get heated from time to time. Whether to amend or not. If you decide to amend, you must amend a whole bed, not just planting holes. Amending and creating a raised bed at the same time is the ideal way to do it. Basically, you're just aiding and abetting good topsoil production.

Given a choice between poor sand or heavy clay soil, I would choose clay. It holds much more in the way of nutrients and water, and can be improved--in my experience--much more easily and permanently than sand. The (simple answer) way to improve either is by adding organic matter. Clay retains it, microbial action increases, and generally a positive cycle of improvement begins (especially if a raised bed is created to permit or improve drainage). Organic matter just hasn't got the staying power in sand that it has in clay. It tends to get washed out by the quick drainage of water and dessicated and lost during dry times. Sand can be improved, and it is definitely worth doing, but it takes more applications and greater amounts of organic matter over a longer period of time to see the development of a good garden loam than we would see with a clay soil.

Scott

Those are GREAT metorite links. Whatever I found was a recent strike. It was our accident that I found it. I was dividing some hostas and heard the shovel hit a rock when digging a hole. All I really for know sure is that it ain't native. If its not a metorite it is a product of volcanic activity. There is no record of any volcanic eruption in NW Ohio other than when my DH can't get the lawnmower started.

I understand now that you were making the point about amending soil not meaning changing the Ph. You certainly can do one without the other. I will confess that I do both to some extent. The tree peonies and clematis get a handful of lime every other fall. The enkianthus, rhodies, azaleas and some select evergreens get soil sulphur. The natural Ph here is a professionally tested 6.5. So it is pretty easy to move it up or down just enough to make chalk loving or acid loving plants very happy. If I had a Ph 7 or over I doubt I would be trying rhododendrons. If it would take more than a couple handfuls of soil sulphur every fall I wouldn't do it. Most of the rhodies here thrive with no Ph adjustment at all. What they do need is a good shredded oak leaf mulch, liberally applied every year.

I don't think clay is such a bad deal, it has it's good qualities. Gardening in sand is very difficult, the only thing I could ever get to grow in sand was ant hills.

With liberal amounts of organic matter in a good, healthy soil, all the usual culprit minerals ought to be more freely available to allow normally pH sensitive plants a little more of a buffer. In other words, a rich pH 7 soil might support the same rhodies that a poor pH 7 soil would not.

Scott

Decumbent your'e right about clay being easier to amend than sand. I was just remembering how hard it was to dig in my parents clay soil. You needed a pick axe in some places. I can attest to that fact that amemding sandy soil is a never ending process. But you can get a good soil to decent depth over time. Thirty years is a long time, but I'm there. It actually holds together in my hand. Originally it was better suited for an hourglass!

And probably thirty years of improving sandy soil has allowed you to keep an hourglass figure! LOL

Scott

We typed over each other snapple. I could never grow rhodies, but I know someone in Frankfort who does. There is a variety of soil types in a relatively small geographic area here. I really should get my soil tested, I might be surprised! LMK when you take your treasure in for a look.

Oh how sweet. I'm not too bad I guess if you don't mind the "sensible shoes", arch supports, odor of BenGay and gallon size jug of anti-inflammatories.

This message was edited Mar 7, 2007 12:34 PM

Wow, I was beginning to think my thread was dead - thanks everyone. I've learned alot so far - I am now almost certain I overwatered. Some of the mysteries are becoming clear. And just maybe, I should not hate my clay soil so much as work with what I have. Almost sounds like me! =) Makes sense. My arborvitaes are in my back yard 3 ft from the fence planted in an area that is naturally raised. When the first round died off, I went thru all the stuff I said in my first thread, but also had a retainer wall built approx. 7 ft from the fence. Would this be considered a raised bed? Or is a raised bed more of an area of new soil placed directly on top of the current soil (encased in wood or stone)? Sounds silly, but my uncle came over and said he didn't like the fact that the arbors were planted on a slant and I should have a retaining wall. So I did.
So now my plan is this: don't worry about the PH. Provide the area with lots of organic material (compost), don't fertilize. I have lots of big trees and can been seen outside in the fall with my handy dandy Toro sucking and mulching my leaves (one Oak too Snapple) and then (shame on me) bagging them in expensive paper and putting those expensive stickers and hauling down to the street.
When I should now be spreading them on my soil.
I also understand the talk of clay vs sand; retaining nutrients better. I am sooo glad you guys and gals replied because I see things clearer now.
As far as what else is planted in the "retained" arborvitae area, I put in some perennials (kale, bulbs of some sort, and can't remember what else). Pardon my mis-identification of the perennials - I know that seasoned garden folks know their stuff my name(s) - I'll get there...

Don't expect the kale to come back, it's not perennial for us. And don't worry about pardoning yourself, we all started at the beginning...(grin)