stop cutting on them.. and water properly ...ken

where are you.. big city name..

how did you plant them..

how do you water..

does your soil drain ...

did you do any root surgery?

where did you get he plants.. bigbox?.. did they have any other stock that came in damaged???

ken

Hi Ken!
Plants are from local nursery, New Jersey.
The roots were completely in clay when we brought them home.
My area has clay soil, I added some gypsum and mixed with cow manure and garden soil.I also added in the hole SUPERthrive Vitamin Solution, Plant tone, azomite rock dust, worm castings.
I watered it throughout and mulched before we left home for a week. Some days is was raining. After that we installed water dripping system.
I think they just got burned or the second reason - there is not too much place to dig a big hole, so the plants can’t establish well. I just want to understand what should I do now.. if I cut all of the long branches it will give the plant more energy to release new shoots?
We planted total 6 laurels, 3 of them look good and alive.

I'd talk to the nursery. Among other things, they may have a return policy. Some take plants back after a few weeks to a month, some after a year.

I don’t know why those are having trouble now, but aren’t they too big for that space ?

Yes, they are way too large for that siting!! Skip laurels get as much as 18' tall and 5-7' wide. This is the wrong plant for that space! And you also juiced up the planting hole unnecessarily with all the amendments and potions applied.

You never want to amend individual planting holes and doing so in clay can create drainage issues that will impact water flow. Any amendments that might be necessary should be applied as a mulch or topdressing only. And newly planted shrubs need NO fertilizer for their first year - they come from the nursery with all they need to get established.

btw, SuperThrive (aka SuperJive) is just very expensive snake oil. It does nothing to help plants become established and is really just a very dilute vitamin B solution. Don't waste your money :-)

Consider changing to Gulfstream or similar Nandina. They will do well in the confined space & clay soil.

I would have considered consider Euonymus 'Greenspire' if deer are not a problem and you want a tall screen

Give each of those laurel about 5 gallons of water a week and make sure it penetrates the rootball.