The bottom photo appears to show a wound as though the specimen was struck by something or otherwise physically damaged somehow - it is usual for conifers to weep sap from around wounds.

Your trees are 'Reflexa' which means they will return to the ground over time. As in future growth of side branches will produce an undulating carpet around each existing specimen unless a support system is installed to prevent this.

It does not mean however that the existing elevated center portions produced by staking at the production facility are going to collapse.

But if it happens that you are expecting these examples to grow significantly taller this is unlikely to occur unless you install taller stakes, select lead shoots and tie those securely to the stakes. And train them up the stakes to the desired height, over a period of years.

take a hand trowel and dig some small holes around the root mass planted.. AND FIND OUT ABOUT MOISTURE AT ROOT DEPTH ...

that smaller plants.. with less deeper roots appear fine ... while the larger ones with bigger root masses dont.. MIGHT MEAN that the drip is insufficient for the larger ... just not enough water getting deep enough ...

ken

Yes , I don't like drip for newly planted

garden hose or watering can right at the root ball

ron

turn your pics before post

I have two of these. love them.

Those are fairly massive transplants, and actually, look not too bad considering that. Agree with the above comment about the trees perhaps not getting enough water. I'm not a fan of drip irrigation for trees. The surrounding grass looks dry, too. I'd increase the amount of water they are getting, but overall they don't look terrible all things considered and should be able to live good, long lives if you are able to get your watering routine down. It's difficult to overwater a spruce

Thanks all. I chose Norwegians because I have a 16year old specimen in the front yard in a planter w sprayers that has survived decimation by deer and sprawls in a wild, amorphous manner. I wanted something that would grow just tall enough to block the relatively new neighbor’s yard but not the mountain view we moved here for. I like the idea of training some of the limbs to grow upward. The one in the front yard did so on it’s own.

We have Utah clay so it’s been tricky figuring out an appropriate watering schedule as clay is more prone to promoting overwatering rather than under watering. I have a 3ft soil moisture meter, and after 4 days it reads 10+ (on a 10 scale) at 18” (the depth of the root ball).

Re possible trauma - we had a crazy windstorm Labor Day weekend w 50-60mph winds spiking at 110 per the power company in explanation for 200k customers without power, some for up to a week. Maybe I should be grateful these guys survived that.

I do question whether these trees are staked too rigidly whereas the one in the front yard has never had any support to my recollection. Also of note, the same guys who staked the trees trenched around the mulch and placed “a little” roundup in that trench. They are pros so I would hope they would know how much and how close is safe to place near trees.

Re dry grass - the surrounding grass is field grass that just about never gets watered. We live on 2-1/2 acres. We have lawn grass around the house that we maintain with sprinklers. The weepers edge our dog playground.

We have about 40 trees, some planted 16 yrs ago vs 20 footers installed last year. Most are on drip lines because there just isn’t enough time in the week to run around w a hose especially as fall takes away more daylight. I have had issue w consistency of drips and can’t think of a reasonable way to measure how much as come out (ie a bladder system that it can drip into like a ziplock bag.). I’ve had to replace five drips on our big trees placed last year but others more downstream are not blocked.

Re photos - the first photo in the original post was taken within the site. The other two were downloaded and were already in the proper orientation in my photo album. The website did not allow me to reorient the picture. Dying is dying at 90, 180 or 270 degrees. I will try to take the photos directly while in the website to bypass that programming flaw.

Despite the fact it's spilling over onto that sidewalk, that older specimen is really attractive. Neat tree

BTW, I heard about that windstorm. We had it bad in SE Wyoming, but SW WY and UT basically had a hurricane. Glad your trees made it.

If it were me, I'd take a sprinkler and let it hit the new trees for a couple hours once every 2-3 weeks, just to make sure the whole area s getting enough water. The roots need to expand into the grass area and won't unless that area is getting at least some additional moisture, too. I know how hot and dry it can get in UT. Where are you? I'm guessing in Cache Valley

That's what I was going for in the back. I wanted a snuffleupagous look since we have so many conical conifers elsewhere (Bosnian, Austrian & Scotch pines, Colorado/Bakerii spruce). They were gorgeous when they went in and trailed beyond what is now mulched. I don't think the landscapers put weed killer on the draped leaves because they had already died back by then. I wasn't too worried about initial dieback until I saw the gashing where the primary trunk bends. All three trees have that same type of weeping/bark trauma/trunk exposure. I figured these trees couldn't take much of that. But the one in the front yard has bounced back from severe pruning both by man and deer so who knows. It does always sadden me to trim it away from the sidewalk. The front one also gets less direct sun (house faces north/NE) and has some wind protection (though winds usually come from NW to SE)

The smaller weeping Colorados have new growth which I can't say I've seen from the Norwegians. I don't know if one has a higher tolerance to over/underwatering than the other, or sun/wind exposure, or clay/drainage, or if it was less affected by the roundup because the roots were more distant..

Joyjoeclem,

I have discovered that if I try to resize my photos, it may change the orientation and I can’t control it. But if I leave them in original size they post correctly. I’ve experimented with the same photo, and every time I resize, it re-orients. Not sure if that’s what is going on for you. I post photos directly from my iPhone.

i do recall picking medium instead of actual so I’ll have to look into that. good tip, indianagardengirl.

Lovely pics, Ron. Wish I had a garden like that. I live in Huntsville UT (Upper Ogden Valley) just south of Cache Valley. Snowbasin Ski Resort is in the background of the picture showing all the weepers. We're a high country desert so I try to be water responsible. Our secondary/irrigation water was turned off last week so we have to water everything from our culinary water. My husband keeps begging me to let him turn off the outside spigots as we have been getting freezing temps overnight on and off. This weeks lows are mid to upper 30s and next week into the 20s. So I plan to water again one last time this weekend and may just have to keep my fingers crossed for them to survive the winter and reassess watering schedule after the thaw. The guy who installed the big trees said to water them once a month through winter if there's no snow coverage, but we had a great winter so I didn't have to do that. (We had snow in regular intervals so there was constant coverage but not so much that we had to dig ourselves out.)