Question
I live near Philadelphia, PA. A week ago I had several new shrubs put in by a landscaper.  Among them are arborvitae, an Alaskan cypress, Japanese Hinoka Cedar and a dwarf Alberta spruce. I watered them daily as directed. Within three days, they began to turn brown. Landscaper came out and said I wasn't watering them enough, although I was soaking the ground around each for several minutes.  We had a heavy rain yesterday and today they look much worse.  He claims you can't overwater shrubs that are transplanted from containers.  Yet I've read that you can and that it limits oxygen to the roots. He's saying that if they die, they're not covered b/c I didn't water them heavily enough the first 3 days.  
I've planted shrubs myself and never had this problem, and never watered them as conscientiously. So what do you recommend?
Thanks for any advice you can give me.

Answer
Hello Kirstin

This is a bit of a vexed question!

Firstly, conifers are a specialist subject, and I'm not an expert in that field, so all I can do is tell you what I'd advised with any shrub, but please understand that this is definitely on a 'Without Prejudice' basis.

With any newly planted shrub, whether pot grown or not, I would recommend giving it a good soak before planting and once it was in the ground I'd advise that it be well watered in to settle the soil around the roots (the amount of water needed does depend a lot on the size of the plant).  

Additionally, with pot grown plants I'd recommend that a few of the roots be teased out from the rootball to encourage the roots to get out into the surrounding soil as quickly as possible.

After the initial watering in I'd recommend that a good mulch be put around the plant to help to hold the moisture in.

Watering every single day shouldn't be necessary - unless it rains I should say that every 3-4 days should be sufficient - and give them a really good dousing.  As I mentioned previously, the amount of water needed will depend on the size of the plant - the bigger the plant, the more water it will need, but again - not every day.

It is possible to over-water any plant, especially if the soil is not free-draining, e.g. if it is mostly clay, and plants can effectively drown.  It's not oxygen they are deprived of, but nutrients. Also roots sitting in a puddle of water can (and often do) rot off!  (Unless they are water plants, of course).

I'm not sure that the affected plants will recover.  Once conifers begin the die, that's usually it!

I don't know what you can do about your Landscaper, but if you have a local library with a gardening section, do some research, with particular attention to conifers.  Go on-line - just enter 'conifers' into the search engine - it's amazing what will come up, or you could contact a local plant nursery (not a garden center) - a nursery is the place where the plants are grown for onward transmission to the garden center - plant growers love to talk about their subject - use that!!

If you are able to gather enough information that contradicts what your Landscaper is saying he may have a change of heart and replace your plants - you can but try!!