where are you.. big city name ...

large transplants can take a year or 3 to get established and start performing to expectation ... my usual is that if they live the first year.. good enough ... and if they grow a bit the second.. even better.. but i usually dont expect large growth until about year 3... so tone down your expectations a bit ...

how did you plant them.. what is your soil ... potted.. circling roots.. etc.. give us some info to work with ....

ans .. where are you.. big city name..

and when 2 years ago did you plant them .. fall so they are barely a year in ground.. or what???

ken

I am in Formby, just outside of Liverpool, near to the coast so it’s sandy soil. They were planted in April 2019, so I was hoping for a bit more than they are currently showing as height/width wise they haven’t progressed much.

Unsure on the roots. They were bought in pots and planted without pots.

The notched leaves are due to vine weevils. But not the yellowing and browning. If you’re very near the sea salt winds could be part of the problem. And once established they shouldn't need much, if any, watering in the U.K., especially where you are in the West.

To be horribly blunt, Laurel is an uninteresting choice here in the U.K. and other than the vine weevils they don’t attract much in the way of wildlife. We can grow much more interesting stuff here. Perhaps Griselinia, a fresh green, evergreen very resistant to salt winds and excellent for coastal gardens, would be a better choice.

In fact why have a hedge at all when you already have a fence? You could have a really beautiful mixed border enjoyed by insects and birds, as well as humans. Personally I’d ditch the laurels altogether and start again with more inspiring plants.

Sandy soil is probably defeating the watering and fertilization. With the latter effort having little impact so far on the very poor light green leaf color. So that changing details of how you are fertilizing is probably needed in order to produce a marked improvement - paleness of foliage color in green plants tends to be a nitrogen deficiency. With it being the case that a product used for this situation should be one that primarily supplies that element.

Also if I am seeing a soaker hose running along the base of the wall and that (or some other setup with limited surface coverage) is all you have been using to water it may not have been reaching all of the roots.

Finally the plants are tending to be abnormally sparse and there are recently shed leaves on the ground. With it seeming kind of early in the year for these to start appearing (shedding of spent leaves by broad leaved evergreens is a summer phenomenon, with your laurels looking like they haven't even made new spring growth yet). So there might actually be something else going on, maybe a soil borne pathogen.