The dwarf pine on the right is showing poor color and is likely dead already. If the problem is with the site, moving the other two might save them.

This is a good time of year to assess how your landscape plants are faring now that they have most of another growing season under their belt.

Young plants in particular should be growing and getting bigger and better each year – assuming you’ve kept them amply watered. Ones that are just sitting there sulking might be trying to tell you they’re not happy where you’ve planted them.

They might even be in the process of dying a slow death. If so, moving them to improved conditions ASAP could avoid that fate.

It’s not unusual for a new plant – especially a tree or shrub – to put on little growth the first year or two. Plants tend to first focus their energy on establishing roots before trying to add more water- and nutrient-demanding top growth.

But by year three, you ought to see noticeable progress. Plants definitely shouldn’t be heading the other direction by looking less dense, suffering branch dieback, growing smaller leaves, and showing similar signs of stunted growth.

Once you realize you’re dealing with a “failure-to-thrive” situation, the best thing you can do (usually) is dig up the plant and remedy the cause.

More often than not, the plant has either been wrongly planted or sited in a spot that doesn’t match its needs.

In the case of planting miscues, a leading problem is too-deep planting. When plant crowns (the point where new growth emerges) are buried and roots are too far underground, plants struggle to grow and may suffocate and die.

The sooner you realize that’s the problem and replant at the proper depth, the better chance the plant has at recovering.

You can tell if a tree is planted too deeply by looking at the base of the trunk.

Properly planted trunks begin to widen at the bottom as they transition into the root zone. If you don’t see this “root flare” above ground and notice instead that the trunk runs straight into the ground like a telephone pole, the tree is likely planted too deeply.

Other problems can include burlap or twine left on root balls, circling roots that weren’t fixed before planting, and atrocious soil.

Digging such plants lets you remove packing material that should’ve been removed before, gives you a second shot at freeing or removing badly circling roots, and lets you aerate the soil by loosening it and working an inch or two of compost into it.

This is also the time to reassess whether you’ve picked a good planting site in the first place.

If the site is wetter than you thought, for example, and your struggling plant is one that doesn’t like wet feet, it’s best to move it to drier ground. You could also improve and build up the soil into raised beds, although it’s usually easier to move a plant than to try and change a site to suit an unhappy plant.

Ditto for plants that are in too-dry, too-bright, too-dark, or too-windy spots or ones that are being out-competed by nearby big tree roots. Do your homework to determine if the environment you’ve picked is a good one for the plant you have there… and if not, move it.

Most plants transplant better than gardeners realize – especially if you move them when they’re young, move them in the cooler spring or early fall, and keep them consistently damp for at least a full year after the move.

It’s better to try and fix a known problem by replanting or transplanting than to do nothing and watch the plant continue a slide to death.

Digging doesn’t solve everything, though.

If a plant is floundering simply because you didn’t water it, then soaking it ASAP may save the day. (Unfortunately with evergreens, dry plants are already dead by the time they start to brown.)

If a plant is stunted because you packed 10 inches of mulch over the soil surface, then removing the layer down to two or three inches might help.

If the soil nutrition is out of whack, then running a soil test might help identify an issue that fertilizer might help.

DIY Penn State kits are available for $9 at county Extension offices, some garden centers, or online at Penn State’s soil test website. Avoid fertilizing without verifying a deficiency or you might add a product that makes a problem worse… or at least waste money.

And sometimes the problem could be a bug or disease, which usually requires a fair amount of detective work. Again, don’t just randomly spray something. Know what you’re trying to treat so you don’t harm off-target wildlife or pollute unnecessarily.

This plastic tree wrap protects the bark from animal damage.

One of the biggest threats to a new tree is animal damage.

Rodents such as voles, mice, and chipmunks often chew the base of a young tree’s trunk – potentially killing it when “girdled” the whole way around – while deer often chew branches and rub off bark with their antlers.

Penn State Extension educator and assistant research professor Dr. Tyler Groh says a DIY tall wire cylinder makes an excellent and inexpensive way to stop “everything that wants to nibble on our tree planting.”

The cylinders are made out of five-foot-tall sections of wire fencing, available in rolls at most hardware stores.

For one- or two-year-old saplings, the sections need only be wide enough so they’re about a foot across when rolled into cylinders and fastened by the cut ends.

The cylinders wrap around the tree and are held in place by a single stake next to the cylinder. Groh suggests securing the cylinder to the stake with cable ties (a.k.a. “zip ties”).

As added protection against rodents that can squeeze through the fence openings, Groh suggests installing a one- to two-foot-tall piece of plastic tubing around the base of the trunk. It should be slightly buried or at least snug to the ground, he says.

Groh says these wire cylinders offer advantages over more commonly used plastic-tube protectors in that they’re less likely to be knocked or blown over, and they avoid the overheating that can happen inside of plastic in summer.

Groh filmed a three-minute video on the Penn State Extension website showing how to install these wire tree protectors.

The same concept works for larger new trees, except the wire-fence protectors should be wider – more like cages than cylinders.

To install these, hammer three or four six-foot-tall stakes around the perimeter of the tree, about two to three feet out from the trunk. Then wrap five- to six-foot-tall fencing around the stakes, securing it with cable ties.

Tree of heaven is distinctive in late summer by its seed cluster, shown in the right photo.

One tree you don’t want to protect is the tree of heaven, one of Pennsylvania’s most invasive weed trees that also has been found to be a favorite draw of the spotted lanternfly.

By getting rid of trees of heaven on your property, you’ll not only make a dent in a species on the state’s Noxious Weed List but possibly reduce populations of lanternflies flocking to your yard.

Late summer is the best time of year to kill trees of heaven because that’s when herbicides are most effective, says Penn State Extension educator David Jackson.

Simply cutting down a tree of heaven and walking away doesn’t work.

“Cutting trees can make the situation worse as trees respond by sending up dozens of stump sprouts and root suckers,” Jackson adds.

He says the best way to control trees of heaven is to use a systemic herbicide (one that works its way throughout a tree) and to time it when the tree is moving carbohydrates from the foliage to the roots in preparation for winter.

“This takes place from July until the onset of fall color,” Jackson says.

Penn State Extension recommends glyphosate and triclopyr as the two most effective systemic herbicides for trees of heaven. These can be applied in one of three ways.

One is the traditional spray on the tree’s foliage, which is a good option when the trees are small enough to be reached by a sprayer and when the foliage can be treated without spray drifting onto nearby off-target plants, Jackson says.

A second option is a “basal bark” method, which involves spraying an herbicide all around the tree’s trunk from the ground up to about 18 inches on the trunk. This works best on trees with trunk diameters of six inches or less, Jackson says.

A third option is the “hack-and-squirt” method, which involves using a hatchet to cut two-inch-wide, downward-facing hacks at multiple spots around the trunk, then squirting herbicide into the hacks. This works best on larger trees with trunk diameters of more than one inch.

All of the above treatments are detailed in a video Jackson did for the Penn State Extension website.

Jackson says cutting a tree of heaven and treating the stump with herbicide isn’t very effective at killing roots and the colonies extending from them. Neither is using herbicides in winter, spring, and early summer when trees aren’t moving nutrients into the roots.

Even with ideal timing, though, retreatments might be needed since trees of heaven are such tough customers.

“Persistence is the key to success,” Jackson says.

Trees of heaven are distinguishable from look-alike sumacs this time of year because the females are loaded with yellow-red seed pods. A single female tree of heaven can produce 300,000 seeds per year, which is one reason why this weed tree has spread so effectively.

Once a tree sprouts, roots extend quickly and begin sending up “suckers” that grow into ever-expanding colonies.

“Tree of heaven can sprout anywhere, including in sidewalk cracks,” Jackson says. “It does not provide useful wood products or food for beneficial insects and other wildlife. In short, it does more harm than good.”

As if all of that wasn’t bad enough, tree of heaven has been found to be a favorite food source of the spotted lanternfly, that new bug that has inundated central Pennsylvania in the past three years.

The sap of tree of heaven is such a lanternfly draw that foresters are using them as “trap trees” to draw in lanternflies for insecticidal treatments that can kill masses of the bugs in a concentrated area.

Fewer trees of heaven mean fewer food sources for lanternflies ... or at least sends them elsewhere in search of a meal.

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