I have a 'Hetz Midget' that splays open like a flower every winter and by May is back to its normal self. Give it time.

tj

it will fill back in ... though it might take a year or two ..

but you need to address the winter issue ... do you pile snow on it... snowblower ... falling off eaves ...

how did this happen???

straight down pix are hard ... but why dont you give us a pic of the group and their location.. maybe we can brainstorm for why ...

cant for the life of me.. figure out what the stuff that looks like black plastic above it ... in your pic

ken

dh came home after my earlier posting, took one look and said it was from smowload (we

Thanks Mike and tj, that's a relief. Ken, that black plastic is a windbreak made of that weed preventer fabric. Funny tho, this is the first year I did any winter protection and the first year for any damage. BTW, DH came home after my earlier post, and took one look and said it was from snow damage (we were gone for two months). I thought I'd send this pic for now, I'll send another tomorrow. They looked great all last summer, so it's not lack of sun or water issues. Only other thing I can think of is that foliage needed trimming.

Thanks,

Sharon

SE MI zone 5

i'm not much into trimming conifers ... but you are so over-planted with these TREES ... in that spot.. that you are going to have to do it ... to keep them tame ..

conifers are trees .. and even the small ones never really stop growing ... so in this case ... shear them ...

but that isnt going to make the hole in this one fill in any faster ...

and why do you think you need the wind break ... just curious ...

ken

Those Arborvitae get at least 8 ft. wide. I've seen them much wider. I'd transplant at least every other one right away to a different place in your garden with the idea of transplanting more next year. Start with the ones next to the walk. They move fairly easy when small. They also make a nice medium height hedge given some time. You might want to move them all this year. I would.

Formality in the garden is risky.

Mike

Ken; I put up the windbreak because of all the winterburn on my conifers in the last few years, esp to on young Concolors in a new bed on the opposite side of the yard. Our back yard faces west, we're on a lake and the wind gets pretty vicious.

Mike, thank you. I really had no idea those tiny little balls would get so wide! I probably wouldn't have planted that half circle if I had known because I try to plan things for as little maintenance in the future as I can (lots of shrubs, only easy care perennials - - -no staking, freq dividing or deadheading etc). I'm going to have to do the same thing with the hakonechloa grass I used to edge other parts of the same bed, eventually, those things grow SO slowly. Thanks for the heads up, because I was going to repeat the arborvitae hedge idea in the new bed. I'm getting to the point where I can tell I'm going to be slowing down soon whether I like it or not!

We're also going to be planting a privacy hedge between our house and the neighbor's on the opposite side. So that would facing north on our side of the hedge with the hedge running east-west. We have only 10 feet max for bed and all because we're also working around a shed on that side. I was going to do Technys because I thought the wider tree would look better in a long line of arbs, but then I came across the multiple leader problem. Any ideas?

Sharon

Looks real nice NOW,,,but ken & mike are right,,,at minium , take out every other one

ron

Thanks, Ron

I'll definitely think about it, but I really like that planting. I think we only paid about 6 bucks apiece for those hetz midgets, so it was kinda a spur of the moment decision.

I think for at least this year I'll trim them, but I'm certainly not going to repeat the same mistake all over my yard (and I would have!)

Here's a few more pics