This past weekend, I planted the last of four arborvitaes that I bought back in spring. I wanted something for a bit of privacy in my backyard, and read that arborvitaes are native-ish, easy to care for, and great for privacy. I saw them 50% off at Petiti’s one day while looking for other stuff, so I went ahead and picked up four that were maybe 4 some feet tall for $200. I had to transport them all in my hatchback, which at the time had no struts to open up the hatch. I set them on my deck for a bit, then moved them onto my yard, thinking I’d want to plant them quickly. They kept falling over, so I moved them against the side of my deck.
After planting my redbud tree, I knew it was a lot of work and rough on my body, which kind of made me reluctant to plant any when I had something planned in the near future, which happened a lot this summer. I planted one in the summer. My heavy clay soil was very dry and the digging was difficult. The hole was 30″ in diameter (twice the pot), but only about 10″ deep (equal to the pot). Since arborvitaes are native, I was able to mostly backfill the dirt I had dug out when replanting. I did put some rock and sand in the bottom of the whole, some planting mix and compost in the side fill, though not a lot. I set the root ball in so that it was a couple inches above the ground and did my best to position it straight up. The clay soil that was my backfill was very lumpy, so the dirt at the surface ended up very lumpy. Luckily, water helped flatten it some.
During the digging, I was dripping sweat. I had to stop occasionally to drink water and rest. I was definitely sore after that and for a while after.
I put the first one to the side of my native flower garden, offset to the side. It was a little bit weird positioning, but I wanted it closer to the house / deck to provide closer privacy. When I placed the wildflower garden the year before, I was originally wanting it to provide some privacy. It doesn’t get very tall though, especially since the tall plants all like to lean over. It has limited where I can place the arborvitaes though.
Deciding on positioning for the rest, the amount of work and toll on my body, and the various things going on this summer led me to procrastinate on it. I had to water the potted ones frequently all summer and move them so that they didn’t kill the grass beneath them too much. When fall started falling, and things slowed down a bit, that pushed me to finally push to get them in.
For positioning, I considered putting some between my wildflower garden and my deck going toward the house, to give more privacy to the deck when they eventually get tall enough. But that would be pretty tight. I also considered a zigzag or other shape to give more privacy, but that would give less length. If I went straight and parallel to the yard line, they’d be in a good bit from the edge of the yard and I’d have a section of grass that was less usable. So I settled on doing them in a straight line that was diagonal to the yard edge, starting from where the first one was (since I couldn’t move that), and ending lined up with the wildflower garden the first one was next to. I put them so the nearest side of each is three feet from the next. Hopefully they’ll expand some. This leaves room to mow between them, though it is a bit annoying and tight, especially with the leaning wildflowers nearby some.
I carefully measured out the spots for the remaining three, dug out the turf, and then dug the hole and planted one. That was a lot of work and I again was sweating a lot. I spaced planting the others a week or two apart. I finally got the last one in this past weekend.
I think they look pretty good. The last one may be leaning a bit. Hopefully, not enough to be noticeable. In a year or two, if all goes well, they will provide decent privacy from that side to an area of my back yard. I’m not necessarily looking for full privacy, mainly just being able to sit there without being easily noticed. I think they will go up to twelve feet, and hopefully will get wider, so after some years, they should provide plenty of privacy.
They have developed a few brown patches in spots. I’m not sure why, but will try to figure out and do what I can before winter to help them. They can become tasty to deer once other foods start to disappear, and I get deer all the time, so I will have to see what I need to do to protect them. I have some repellent that I will try spraying on them monthly over the winter. I also will probably try putting a motion sensing path light or two near them, which seem to help. I will watch over them, and if I see damage happening, I may have to go more drastic, like putting a wrap on them. Some put burlap.