My two cents: The trees are growing in a shady, under story environment. They will not look great until they get much more sunlight, if that ever happens. They will remain sparse and spindly until they can get more sun.

Conifers with missing lower branches rarely ever generate any new ones in that location. So these are very unlikely to fill in much and their lanky, leggy appearance is due to the shade they are being grown in. You could use them to help with some screening but I would not site them where they would be especially noticeable.

If you decide to do if, find the smallest trees, like 16" to 20" tall max. These will be more likely to fill out over time, especially if they have full sun and good distribution of green branches on them.

Smaller trees will also be a lot less work and will establish much easier and faster that larger specimens will.

In the center and to the right in the picture below are two picea glauca (white spruce) that I dug from the woods in 2015. In this picture (2016) they had been in a year already. Less than two feet tall at planting time: You can see the one in the center is pretty scraggly.

Next picture is from last summer (Aug 2022), same trees, different angle: The one in the center is the scraggly one from the previous picture. The one on the right is the same from previous pic.

Don't worry too much about missing lower branches on a smaller spruce. Branches a foot or so from the ground will still be a foot or so off the ground when the tree is 10 ft. tall and they will expand and send some shoots towards the ground (in full sun) and as you can see in the picture, there are not much for voids anywhere (in fact the scraggliest tree turned out the best).

A little selective pruning after a couple of years will help in shaping the tree. These 2 were mostly just left alone. And I've done dozens of these.

Again, this is much more work than planting potted spruce from the nursery but if you have the trees and a good back, go for it! ;-)

Thansk everyone for your advice- this is super helpful! I will move them out of the woods and put the sparse once in an unoticable area and there is one nice small one in the center.

imo.. they are entirely normal... for what they are.. where they are... life isnt a disney movie.. young trees in nature are more apt to look like charley brown trees.. rather than a snow white forest...

read this first paragraph here: https://sites.google.com/site/tnarboretum/Home/planting-a-tree-or-shrub

include your location in EVERY POST.. so we might tell you when the proper time to do this..

one thing for sure.. they are in heavy shade... DO NOT PUT THEM IN FULL SUN.. you will sunburn the heck out of them.. full bright shade for perhaps the rest of summer..

ken

I've never had white spruce sunburn upon transplanting from a shady area to a sunny one. And we get over 15 hours of sun daily where I'm at.

If the trees are getting any 'real sun' at all, they should be acclimated to UV, so sunburn will not be an issue.

But I have had new growth, that was fairly well along in length, die after the tree was transplanted, Just because the roots have been disturbed.

The trees re-budded and recovered anyways so it wasn't that big of a deal.

You could just to wait until fall when the tree is dormant or next spring even, if you like.

ps: keep the trees well-watered, as needed, in the heat of summer.

Yes, as Bill shows, depending on the species, some can regenerate new buds from along the trunk and branch sections that are bare that in several years time they'll thicken up substantially.

8--5-2023: update.

I did a little preemptive pruning. Those long sweeping side branches would be trouble so clipped those to a length that was closer to the trees form.

A good 1-3" of new growth this summer (top to bottom). Starting to even itself out just since end of May.

You'll see more than twice this growth next season and it will be on its way.

See you then. ;-)

;)

This season (2024) the tree didn't put on a lot of length but filled out nicely.

Picture taken 6-15-24 (forgot to take another later in the season). :-)

eta: this is the worst specimen I've ever rescued.

ha, just found a picture from Nov 2021, of the original tree, it has better background for reference, a few months after it was transplanted from the woods to the yard.

The things I do just for fun! :0)