15 Green Giant Thuja

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MorpheusPA
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15 Green Giant Thuja

Post by MorpheusPA » April 7th, 2009, 9:01 am

I need more privacy on the back line. A lot more.

So there's 15 Green Giant Thuja going on that line starting Thursday. The area is organically modified clay, pH about 6.5, decent drainage although it can get a touch boggy at times in heavy rains. After rain, it drains out into the rear swale, 4' lower and 15' behind, and the water drops to normal field capacity. Like any clay, once damp, it stays damp for a while. The soil can be easily dug to 12-16", below that starts to turn to hardpan clay.

The plan is to dig 3' wide to clear the grass and accomodate the side-spreading roots, and go as deep as the root balls (quite small as these are going to be 2' plants in 2 gallon containers). Amendment to soil will be minimal, perhaps a small handful of cracked corn and alfalfa mixed in the top three inches.

How does that plan sound and does anybody have any recommendations?

There are also two Soft Touch hollies going into the garden, although that soil is heavily organically amended, 20 to 30" deep, and I shouldn't have any issues. However, advice would be heartily appreciated.

Thanks!

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Re: 15 Green Giant Thuja

Post by diclemeg » April 7th, 2009, 12:52 pm

morpheus,
im gonna be planting lots of leyland cypress, but probably the 8' ones, also for privacy..... am curious, what did those thujas cost, delivered?

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Re: 15 Green Giant Thuja

Post by eriocaulon » April 7th, 2009, 1:02 pm

Those trees are beautiful and seem to be really popular nowadays. good choice!

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Re: 15 Green Giant Thuja

Post by MorpheusPA » April 7th, 2009, 1:22 pm

diclemeg wrote:morpheus,
im gonna be planting lots of leyland cypress, but probably the 8' ones, also for privacy..... am curious, what did those thujas cost, delivered?
$470 for 15 Thuja and 2 Soft Touch holly, so about $27 per plant including shipping. I bought from a local, very much trusted nursery so delivery was zip. They're all of 2 miles away, health is excellent to extraordinary, and they've purposefully underestimated the actual heights.

Two considerations for you.

One, Leyland Cypress grows really, really, really fast (as fast as the Thuja). Larger plants have had their root mass broken and stripped away for B&B (Ball and Burlap) plants. That shocks the heck out of them, and it does require about a year for them to fully recover. It's usually a better idea to start smaller, with a container plant that has 100% of its root mass, for reduced adjustment time. A smaller container plant can easily outperform a larger B&B tree because it never shocked other than standard transplant shock. Losses are also much less common on smaller container plants. I've had my best luck starting trees as 3' whips and working with them from there.

Two, they tend to have short lifespans...mostly because people have them torn out in fifteen years because they get absolutely huge and really bushy. If you have adequate space, great. If not, you may wish to consider another plant.

I should point out that's the same issue with the GG Thuja. We don't really know how long Green Giant Thuja live because none of them are old enough to have reached the end of their natural lifespan. Many get removed because they grow 20 to 50 feet tall (twenty in a hedge or row, 50 as a specimen) with 10' to 30' spreads (wider as a specimen). Mine are going in a tight hedgerow.

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Re: 15 Green Giant Thuja

Post by bpgreen » April 7th, 2009, 2:48 pm

I read once (but have lost the link) that planting larger trees is counter productive in the long run, even for trees that grow more slowly. The larger trees are bigger initially, but (for the reasons Morpheus cited) they tend to suffer on transplanting and after a few years a smaller tree is as large or even larger.

Larger trees are also more likely to die after transplanting.


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Re: 15 Green Giant Thuja

Post by turf_toes » April 7th, 2009, 3:30 pm

I think both BP and Morph are right.

A couple of years ago, I helped a neighbor plant 60 15-foot-high Giant Arbs around the perimeter of his backyard. These trees can get huge and he wanted privacy (he had a pool and his neighbors were always gawking at him). The Giant Arbs will supposedly get supposedly grow up to 60 feet tall. We replaced an equal number of 4-foot Giant arbs with the bigger versions (the developer had planted the younger ones. Rather than just dispose of the smaller trees, we transplanted them to another area of his yard.

It's been about five years and those 4-foot-tall Giant arbs are now 15-feet tall. The "big" ones we replaced them with are about the same height. In fact, he's had to replace several of them because they died out for various reasons.

In hind site, it would have been better to keep the younger trees where they were. I think the smaller trees ended up being healthier too.

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Re: 15 Green Giant Thuja

Post by MorpheusPA » April 7th, 2009, 5:08 pm

turf_toes wrote:I think both BP and Morph are right.

A couple of years ago, I helped a neighbor plant 60 15-foot-high Giant Arbs around the perimeter of his backyard. These trees can get huge and he wanted privacy (he had a pool and his neighbors were always gawking at him). ....

In hind site, it would have been better to keep the younger trees where they were. I think the smaller trees ended up being healthier too.
I have the same issue with the neighbors. Stop staring already, I'm not that interesting. No, really, ducking behind the curtain does nothing. I already saw you. Weirdo. Forget having guests on the back deck, it's a non-stop stare fest. The DS's foot came down, but mine was already down as well...hence the Thuja.

Just to add to the data, I've lost the same street tree three times. #1 just died. #2 just died. #3 died because you really shouldn't plant a full-sized tree in August during a heat wave. #4 looks like it'll make it. Fortunately those were by the builder and their responsibility. Looking at the root mass remaining on a 10' tree, I'm not surprised. That lost 80% of its root mass.

The ones in the back I haven't lost, and those all started as tiny little sprouts you'd never think would make it. They do famously. The Cleveland pear started year 1 at 3', year 2 at about 5', year 3 at 9'. I expect 12 to 14 feet out of it this year. The Kousa started at 1' last year and is 2' tall right now. Those are slow growers, though. My tulip tree started at 1' and is still 1'...it was planted in September.

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Re: 15 Green Giant Thuja

Post by diclemeg » April 7th, 2009, 11:33 pm

thats good advice... i will most definitely plant the small container ones in the backyard, but in the front where privacy is requested immediately by my wife, i probably gotta get the bigger ones, but maybe I can get the biggest ones that can come in a container, perhaps 6', from these guys.... http://wattersontreefarm.tripod.com/when_to_plant.html

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Re: 15 Green Giant Thuja

Post by MorpheusPA » April 8th, 2009, 7:34 am

diclemeg wrote:thats good advice... i will most definitely plant the small container ones in the backyard, but in the front where privacy is requested immediately by my wife, i probably gotta get the bigger ones, but maybe I can get the biggest ones that can come in a container, perhaps 6', from these guys.... http://wattersontreefarm.tripod.com/when_to_plant.html
Certainly--if you need immediate privacy, choose the size that's going to work for you. I only suggest small ones in areas where waiting a year or three will work. Both of us are content to wait because we both know I feed a lot and growth rates of 3 to 5 feet a year aren't at all unlikely.

Just keep the big ones damp (not drenched, just damp) by watering once a week if nature doesn't deliver some rain. Avoid feeding the first season except with very light organics. Kelp meal, corn meal, soybean, even small amounts of Milorganite would be fine. Feed this fall a few weeks before you think you'll winterize your lawn. That should get them adjusted and ready to explode in Spring of 2010. Even next year you'll want to water if there's no rain.

Keep grass back at least 2 feet from the plant (three would be better and more is better still), mulch with 3 to 4 inches of shredded hardwood (but keep it back from the tree base at least 3" and leave that little bit bare soil) to retain water and add some mild organics to the soil over time, and hand-pluck any weeds that grow in there. Herbicide is a huge no-no that close to a new plant--stress it as little as possible.

With larger plants, most are lost because they aren't treated correctly. Take care with them and they should do just fine, come out of shock, and grow beautifully for you. The key to that is mostly water availability since the root mass is lower than it should be. The plant will restore that over time, more easily if it was widely dug when it went in, mulched, and kept damp.

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