When we moved into the house, there was a row of arborvitae trees about 20-25 years old along our east fence that were beginning to hang into our neighbor’s driveway.

They had also grown tall (20 feet-ish?), thus blocking out much-wanted sunlight in our very shady backyard and also becoming scraggly and sparce.

About four weeks ago, we finally pulled them out and replaced them with 6′ tall arborvitaes. It’s going to take a few years for them to fill in and create the kind of privacy we had before, but they look much nicer.

We thought all was well until our neighbors (who had an arborist over for dinner who gave them the info), that our trees didn’t look good and that they needed more water. AND that they were planted incorrectly and probably wouldn’t last beyond two or three years. Oh boy.

Long story short, the landscaping company we used came back and fixed everything and added a sprinkler/drip hose system so hopefully those trees will last another 20 years.