Arbor Vitae issues

This is long and I’m sorry.

Zone 6a. We had around 120 arbor vitae green giants planted by a well known company in October 2024. Trees are typically guaranteed for one year, but they said if we paid for them to install drip irrigation and also follows their fertilization plan they would guarantee the trees for up to 5 years.

So trees went in the ground in October 2024, they came out a month later in November and did deep root fertilization with Arbor GreenPRO and came back in the Spring to do liquid humate.

They were supposed to install the drip irrigation at the time of planting, but then said it wouldn’t be necessary since it was October and they would come back early spring to do it. It ended up not being done until July 9th. I called nearly every week starting in March asking when it would be done.

By March of this year many of the trees didn’t look great – yellowing/browning mostly. We were told it was likely planting shock and winter stress. That turned out not to be true. By May we had almost an entire row full of dead trees.

We were told they’d be replaced. This was also during the time I was calling frequently asking when the drip irrigation would be done. So then my frequent calls were asking when the drip irrigation and new trees would be put in.

As said above, the drip irrigation wasn’t done until July 9. Had to keep calling about the trees. Made a point to say having all these dead trees is an eyesore. We live in a rural area so I’m not sure if they just put us at the bottom of the list since we’re not in a fancy neighborhood??

In August the said the nursery now recommends waiting til the temps cool a little, until September. We said ok. In the meantime, they came out on 8/25 and did another deep root fertilization and liquid humate application. In mid September I reached out again and they said they were waiting for more rain. In late September it had rained some and I reached out and was told they’d begin planting jobs in 2 weeks and we were first on the list. On 10/10 I reached out and was told they were getting everything ready and would be out soon. On 10/23 I reached out and was told they’re waiting for the trees to come from the nursery.

And now here we are on 10/26 still with no resolution and there’s been freeze warnings the last 2 nights. We’re at a loss. Since the second round of fertilization in August, more of the trees are starting to look bad. They have yellow and browning inside close to the trunks. We’ve started wondering if the trees should not have had those treatments.

Can anyone weigh in on this?? Do we need to have another company come out and give us a second opinion? Do a soil test? Hire a lawyer? We’re around 70k paid to this damn company between the trees, fertilization, drip irrigation etc. It’s honestly starting to feel like we’ve been scammed.