bah humbug -- a product review

[treeskin]

Got my second shipment from National Arbor Day Foundation yesterday. It was in worse condition than the plants it was supposed to replace. The forsythias are dried out, with buds falling off and dry roots. The arborvitaes were smaller than the catalog claims (some only 3" tall), and had been packed by stacking the pots in the box one atop the other, so most of the plants were bent, and most had broken branches. And I made the mistake of trying to tap one out of the pot to check the roots....the potting soil was packed hard, and the roots did not fill what turns out to be a very oversized pot. The roots were barely 3" long. I can only assume that these are just-rooted cuttings they jam into a pot as fast as they can get them out the door.

We had bought these trees expecting to rebuild our windbreak with them. Not sure enough of them will survive to do the job. I will not be recommending Arbor Day Foundation as a source for trees again, and I'll take my business elsewhere next spring.