I don’t remember. A couple of weeks ago. Steady decline ever since.
The roots of each plant were very intertwined and took a lot more work than expected to separate. I think had I put them into a more organic mix they would have been ok but I kinda wanted to push the envelope. A $10 learning experience.
Hey cable. Bummer on the death. Always sucks, but now you know! I’d like to say it had more to do with extensive work done to the roots. Even in early spring it may have struggled with such a tough separation. Did you also cut back the foliage heavy and style a bit?
I was pretty taken with arborvitae this year and found a cultivar called “Degroots spire”. Which is a dwarf variety. Extra small fronds, more akin to hinoki cypress than thuja. I worked several. 1 I cut off half the rootball, raked and styled. Did this in mid May. It’s alive and pushing growth but not vigorous. 4 others, I only removed the surface soil to clean up surface roots, raked and cut the extra long roots off the sides and raked out the bottom a bit. Maybe 10-15% reduction. I did two of these in late June and another I did just the other day. All are doing great and growing from every pad established.
Don’t know how they’ll do long term, but I started
This thread, to document there progress. Only tree not pictured is the first one I talked about. The one that’s just doing ok...
You should try again with thuja, as I think they are bonsaiable (not a word) enough, and unique enough to be worth the trial! Look for Degroots spire, I found several at Lowe’s for only $10 also. The others I bought at specialty centers at a much larger size, but still only $30.