personally.. i dont believe in 'feeding' my trees.. shrubs.. conifers.. etc ... soon enough .. they will have roots out under that lush lawn that i presume is heavily fed .... so why would you need to double up .... they are stressed.. not hungry.. imo ....

you are seeing the results of transplant shock ... its very common .... and all you need is some patience ... and proper watering.. especially if there is any drought this summer ... see link ...

if you have a warranty on the redbud.. talk to your seller ...

ken

https://sites.google.com/site/tnarboretum/Home/planting-a-tree-or-shrub

or it could be late spring and slow start to the growing season. combined with some deer browsing over the winter.

but let's jump off the bridge because everyone else is doing it.

The technical answer is, to know if you need fertilizer, you need a soil test and follow the recommendations.

The practical answer is, a little fertilizer will almost never hurt. Among other things, the soil test analysis with zero recommended fertilizer is so rare as to be unique...not entirely unheard of, just quite rare.

just wait...others will chime in with their opinions.

I didn't feed my new plants this year. I planted 14 Arborvitaes and a Burning Bush a couple weeks ago, and I just planted them in native soil. To make it easier, I had the soil delivered to us, but the gravel pit is only a mile away, so it's native to my specific area. I'm afraid that if I "feed" my plants that I will somehow mess with mother nature and screw up the delicate balance of nitrogen etc.

Have you watered them, at all? I water every day it hits 80, period, end of story. And every other day that it's in the 70's. I don't know if your soil is fast draining like mine and needs more water or not. Do you know? Good luck.

As wayne stated, you really need to have a soil test done to know if you need to fertilize or not and with what. But I also agree that a small amount of fertilizer applied in spring will not hurt and especially if it is any type of organic fertilizer product.

Brand new (as in planted this season) plantings generally do not require fertilization as they usually come from the nursery with enough applied nutrients to get them established.

Camera was too far away from planting to have much specific idea what may be wrong. But enough can still be seen to tell that some of the shrubs do look very sparse.

Much woody material sold here has been at retailers for months, has visible severe nutrient deficiencies due apparently to production facility fertilization programs not having been kept up or replicated once the stock left the grower. Awhile back one of the larger independent garden centers in this market started having a maintenance employee fertilize while watering using an injector, boy did that make a difference in how a lot of their stock looked!

Unfortunately they appeared to give this routine up later, as I have not seen anybody doing it there for a few years. And it shows.

That practice - fertigation - has been routinely practiced at all the retail nurseries I have been associated with. It just tends not to be done when customers are onsite as it is a traffic hindrance :-) Plus, you can see the CRF granules visible in most container stock. As to stock having been at the retailers for "months", that is far more likely to be the case in late season as even in my all year round planting climate, the bulk of the stock arrives in spring, so has only been onsite a short amount of time.

Thanks for all the replies! Soil is poorly draining clay.

i do have a soaker hose on these. Set to run every third day for 45 mins on each zone (each group of plants are a “zone”)

I had a soil test done two years ago, prior to planting. I will try to hunt that up

I suspect that these two aren’t getting quite as much sun as the other three skips (shade from that sweetgum). Also, the deer somehow preferred those two shrubs over the other three(no idea why)

I bought an adorable Redbud tree a few years ago, that did great through that spring and summer that I planted it. But come the next spring, it never made any leaves, and when I scratched underneath the bark, it was all brown. It evidently died over the winter for no obvious reason.

These really don't look like fish to me.

Too much water? I had the soakers off last week— forgot to mention

We have gotten more than 3 inches of rain in May. You usually get similar weather, so yes, too much water could definitely be a problem. The idea is to water to establish the shrubs, not to get them addicted to water. If you do get them addicted to water, when (not if) the watering restrictions take effect, POUF, no more shrubs.

They should not have needed any watering so far this year. More than a week without rain, and they should be watered once, maybe, maybe twice a week if they look wilty. The goal is that next year, watering will be an emergency measure taken only in a real drought

And remember, that around here, when the temperature goes up, the humidity does also. So high temperatures do NOT mean that plants require more water since absolutely nothing evaporates when the humidity is about 210%.

I should clarify: last fall, that was the schedule. I literally just got the soakers set up last week. They may have watered once (I was on vacation), but I have had them set to skip days.

Do you think I should set it to skip the next week?

Check your forecast, but I wouldn't have them water next week. Often when we have wet springs, the rains continue until after July 4th. Then if you haven't had rain in the past week, you consider watering.

About 15 years ago, I picked up a super-cool Gardenia oscillating sprinkler at a garage sale. It sat for more than 10 years before I felt the need to use it. Maintenance watering just isn't a thing around here, and planting in the spring and fall often means adequate rainfall.

Actually check the soil to see if it is soggy, moist, or dry by sticking a finger in a few inches down. Especially in mulched clay soil with regular rain, you may need very little water. I have fine sandy loam, and even so rarely water anything other than the veggie garden, and even that only gets watered if we go a couple weeks with no appreciable rain. I might have watered ornamentals (even new ones) perhaps 5 times in the last 10 years. I always check before turning water on or off to see how the soil feels.

I was only planning on using soakers this “first year”, to help plants get established.

Hmmm. Nursery told me to water every other day last fall, when planted. Trying to figure this all out :)

Hmmmm.....there are some very strange ideas being tossed around here :-) First, different plants have different water needs - some prefer drier conditions while others prefer consistently most soils. And newly planted or yet to be established plants (trees, shrubs and perennials) DO require more frequent watering than those that are more mature and fully established, simply because they do not yet have a root system developed enough to adequately access all their water needs. So blanket statements about when and how much to water are pointless!! And also do not take into consideration climate, temps or soil conditions, which ALL have an impact on need and frequency for irrigation.

The rule of thumb is that all established trees, shrubs and perennials need at least one inch of water per week during the primary growing season whether provided by rainfall or by irrigation. Ideally, this is supplied all at one time and slowly, so that it percolates well down into the soil. Annual, edibles and newly planted items could very well need more.

The advice to not water perennials or yet to be established trees and shrubs unless under drought conditions is a recipe for disaster!! You just cannot safely make broad generalizations like that!!

ETA: K, it is no wonder that you are confused. Some of the advice being provided is very specious and I would not recommend following :-)