I feel you on the loss of those green giants. We planted 101 of them on our property here in KY. We are in year 2 now. Did not lose any until the late part of the first year which was only 4 of them. I was happy with that. However, now that we are in spring we noticed that a lot of them were turning that dark green but suddenly (if not instantly) went bright-grown brown and got dry and flakey. I just pull up 30 of them this evening. As I research I think I over-watered them also. I put over 500 ft of drip on them last summer. Watered them 3 to 4 times a week for about 1 hour each time. They were thriving but now I am down to about 65-70 trees as of today. Now that doesn't make me happy. lol Mine were all planted 6ft apart center to center. They were very small ( around 1 ft). Some of those are now close to 30 inches tall. Very pleased with the growth of the ones that are thriving. Disappointed that we have lost 30-35 trees now though. I plan on spacing them 12ft apart now. I also mulched them pretty heavily with natural wood chips. Thanks for sharing and hopefully you don't lose any more trees.

I purchased 15 after you did yours and watered as they instructed which is a lot of watering. Lost half which they replaced free and watered them the same. They survived and now all are thriving at about 4 feet tall. Mine were much smaller than yours when purchased though. Anywho I agree with natural loss even though it seems like a lot of trees. They go through a lot of stress before planting into our soil so that makes sense to me.

It's been 2 years already?!

Did they replace the trees that died on you? Being as they planted and fertilized I would hope they replace them.