I'm new to gardening and trees. Last May I planted 18 Emerald Green Arborvitaes. Most of them look pretty healthy going into spring. I have a few questions about them.
This is a picture of the top of the trees. Is this signs of new growth that will be growing this spring/summer?
This is a picture of one of the trees that has light green on one side of it and those branches are very rough & brittle feeling. Is this a sign that it is too dry? It seems to have helped that I started watering it.
This is a picture of what most of the trees look like: healthy & happy.
I have 15 Emerald Green arborvitaes like yours. Mine are full grown. I started with small starts, just like you are doing. My arborvitaes are doing great and require very little maintenance. Sometimes I see some yellowing on some of my arborvitae branches.. Usually it is not a big deal. Yellowing can be a sign of nutrient deficiencies, so you should watch. Arborvitaes can be affected by drought conditions. It can be irreversible if the drought conditions last for very long. My arborvitaes have a bed of their own needles as mulch. The roots are shallow. I have never used big bark mulch like what you have. Something to consider is that bark mulches tend to leach some nutrients, nitrogen I believe. And a thick bark layer can rob oxygen from the roots. So the bark should not be too thick. Your arborvitaes look healthy, even with the little bit of yellowing that you have. Your trees are small, so keep them watered and watch the yellowing. When you trees reach full size, you will need to clean out the dead branches and needles that will naturally collect inside them. I wrote a long post here about this several months ago. I cleaned my trees and ended up with a huge pile of dead needles, which worked great as mulch. Cleaning out the dead matter is good for the trees and will allow more sunlight to reach the live braches. It will be a while before your trees are big enough to need cleaning like that.
