Should I Amend the Soil Before I Replace a Dead Arb?

Becky in Massillon asks, ‘I have an arborvitae that died in my landscaping and we dug it out and I just wondered if there’s anything special I should do, if the soil would be contaminated, if I should do anything with it before we plant the new one.’

I would amend the soil a little bit with something like a Sweet Peet or a compost of some type. Just mix that in the existing soil. It’s not a bad idea to do that when you’re planting new shrubs anyways.

This time of year, I normally recommend the all-season fertilizer, but we are getting later in the year and I don’t want to encourage growth in the winter. So I would really focus on maybe using a fertilizer like Biotone. Biotone’s designed just to develop the root system on the plant, and because the top of the plants are going to go dormant here in the next month or two, we want to make sure that we get the root system growing. The root system will still grow for three to four months.

Just remember if you plant this time of year, you still want to make sure you’re actively watering. Sometimes the temps cool down and we forget about watering like when it’s in the 90s. We all think about it, but then once we cool back down, they’re like, oh, it’ll be fine. A new plant is still going to need watered at least twice a week.

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