White spruce bareroot transplant

[wysiwyg]

I was checking up on the white spruce bareroot 4 year transplants I bought over the internet and planted about a month and half ago, and noticed that on three of them, the top half the tree is budded, but the bottom half is completely defoliated and the branches are dead. Should I give these a chance, or just replace them with something else while its still early enough in the season?

 

[pinus]

Tops are ok. So, they will grow normal. You can check the trunk scratching a littlebit of it on the area of dead branches to be sure that callus is alive.

 

[Kneejerk Bombas]

The tree looks great.
Lower branches are shed by trees naturally because the tree knows it will have to compete with other plants for light, and the best light will usually be up high.
If the tree grows, and there is no competition for light down low, the upper branches will cascade down to ground level.
Since the tree has new buds, it means the tree is alive and growing. It will spend a lot of its energy reserves building new roots, so you may see slow growth the first couple years, then it will take off.
Continue to keep the grass away (grass is highly competitive for water and nutrients) and water during drought. You may want to add compost to the surface. It is excellent soil conditioner and slow release fertilizer. Garden centers sell composted sheep manure for a couple bucks a bag, which is a good choice because sheep manure is slightly acidic, just what acid loving trees like in our high pH soils here in SE WI.

Do you think the deer will find them?

 

[Rtom45]

From the picture, it appears that the tree has a double leader. Leave the straightest, strongest one and remove the other completely. If you don't do this while the tree is young there's a good possibility you'll loose the tree when its older.

 

[wysiwyg]

Thanks for the replies! I'm a little anxious about about the ones that have significant amounts of dead wood since there was such a huge failure rate last year. The drought may have had something to do with it, but I was watering once a week and anything that had the slightest evidence of weakness was dead by August. Hopefully the abundant rainfall we've had so far will prevent a repeat!

Each tree is mulched with wood chips that the power line trimmers dumped off last year.

As for deer, I also planted about 50 canadian hemlocks and made the calculated risk to spend the money to protect them and leave the spruces unprotected. The consensus from internet publications is that spruces are not preferred by deer unless conditions are really severe. I paid attention to the hundreds of other young spruces around the neighborhood and didn't see a single one with deer damage.