Over the last couple of weeks, we’ve had folks sending or showing us pictures of their arborvitaes or trees or bushes that are not doing well.

We got sent a picture of a dwarf Alberta spruce and it is in pretty bad shape. Only the top eight inches of the plant looks like it’s still alive. Why it turned brown is a little tough to say, but I think there was gravel underneath that one. When you’re trying to get a plant initially established, you definitely want to water more heavily when you have gravel instead of mulch. The gravel’s less maintenance down the road, but it is a little bit more work when you’re trying to establish plants in that gravel. The dwarf Alberta spruce can take the reflective heat of it, not all plants can, but it is going to require more moisture to get initially established. That would be my guess, either that or a dog.

It’s possible it could recover, but it’s going to look bad for probably a period of at least five years. It’s one of those plants that grows super, super slow. It stays small. The amount of fertilizer you’d have to put on that over a five-year period would probably be the same cost as just replacing the plant with the fresh one. I would probably opt to replace that one just because it grows so slowly. Certain plants will recover faster than others, and that one does not recover very fast.

Now’s the time to be doing that to be getting rid of it and getting something new. The ground is soft, removal of those plants this time of year is easier. If you wait for June or July, that ground’s going to get hard like concrete, and it’s going to be much harder digging them out. The ground’s very soft right now. It’s a good time to replant and let those new trees or shrubs that you put in that space take root. They’re going to spend the next 30 to 60 days building up that root system, making it easy for that plant to go through the summertime when we get really hot and really dry. Now’s an excellent time to do that.

If you’re looking to replace that struggling plant, our selection for the replacement plants is at a premium right now. They’re the best they’re going to be throughout the entire season. We brought in 37 semis in about 20 days to stock the nursery outside. Throughout the year, if we’re going to have it, right now is when we have it. There are still a few things we’re waiting on. Some of the fruit trees, the crops are running a little bit late rooting in, so we’re not going to see those till probably the middle of May. Aside from those, all of the other stock we do have in house right now.