There are a lot of questions in the video you shared, and lots of topics to cover, so please let us know if we missed anything. This will be a long reply in order to cover everything, going in the order in which you presented questions in the video.

Fruit trees are high-maintenance plants. They are vulnerable to a range of pest and disease issues, need regular pruning (not at the age you showed us, but long-term), and may also require regular preventative pesticide applications (organic or otherwise, though organic options tend to be less effective and may also cost more and need more applications). If not caught early or prevented with sprays, some pests and diseases risk harming the tree aside from just potentially ruining a crop for that year. Given the age of the trees you showed us, they won't be ready to fruit for at least five more years (possibly more...it's hard to tell, and some looked like seedlings), but it's something to keep in mind.

Are any of the fruit trees grown from seed? (For pawpaw, it won't matter, but for apple and others, they won't necessarily come true from seed, so the genetics of the parent tree/fruit won't necessarily be preserved in its offspring, so fruit traits, mature tree size, and any inherent resistance to disease may be lost or different.)

The type of metal used as a cage for wildlife (and puppy) exclusion should not matter. While it's not going to be toxic to the plant if they touch, it can cause physical damage to the leaves as they blow around and rub up against the cage, though that's more of a cosmetic issue than a serious threat to tree health. Still, make sure the cages give the tree enough room to mature, especially since you don't want any buried mesh interfering with root growth, where they will tangle and might prevent you from pulling up the cage later when it needs expansion to make room for increasing trunk girth. Do keep cages around them if deer are regular visitors, as they can cause serious or fatal damage to a young tree.

The gray-green growths on the tree bark is lichen. It is harmless, does not need removal, and will not impact tree health. Lichen is very common and you'll often find it growing on many species of tree trunk, dead wood (like fences and benches), rocks, and so forth. Moss and algae can also grow on tree trunks and cause no harm. If a tree is in decline and it has lichen, moss, or algae on the trunk, then some other factor is responsible and these organisms are merely taking advantage of the greater light and rain drips reaching the trunk from a sparser canopy.

"Burnt" leaf damage next to the metal mesh is not due to the cage. It could be from under- or over-watering, other environmental stress, or very common leaf infections.

Fruit trees rarely have a straight central leader. In fact, they are usually pruned in such a way that they deliberately are prevented from having one, as it can make yields lower and make harvesting more difficult. How the leader grows has nothing to do with planting depth, though planting a tree too deeply can risk its life down the road, so make sure the root flare is sitting at the soil surface. In trees this young, that will not be a prominent flare, but still sits where the roots first branch off of the trunk base. Never plant a tree more deeply than it was growing in its pot unless it was planted with the root flare greatly exposed. The linked pages provide more information.

Black Walnut and the juglone their roots exude is probably not responsible for any plant symptoms for fruit trees near mature walnuts. You can learn more in the linked page.

For future plantings, coconut fiber is not necessary, though we can't tell how you were using it. Soil amendment shouldn't be needed, but if anything is used, plain compost is the best option. Any amendment needs to be mixed-in well with the existing soil.

All sun-loving plants will grow more in sun than shade, and fruit trees need full sun (pawpaw being an exception, since it's an understory tree in the wild). Full sun is considered 6-8 (or more) hours of direct sun a day in summer. If the mature trees in your video are not casting much if any shade on the fruit trees in summer, then the location should be fine in that regard. The trees are much too young for any influences of sunlight on the canopy shape to be evident yet.

The minor amount of scorch or leaf spot on the baby apple is not rust. That said, apples are vulnerable to rust infection, but symptoms of that fungus are very different and much more prominent. You can learn more on the linked page, and our Growing Apples page provides additional details about how to care for apple trees (and their pear relatives, because their care and troubleshooting is similar).

Every time the seedling trees are defoliated, they will weaken, because it takes lots of resources to replace leaves when they have few root stores of energy at that age. Find a location that suits the tree, cage it, and leave it in place so it can establish. Having to move it each time it's eaten risks too much root loss and stress that it eventually will not recover from.

Do not use aspirin water -- it has no benefits for plants. A struggling tree or young plant should not be treated with any type of pesticide (even if organic), fertilizer, or other remedy. Often, it's a matter of root health, either from over- or under-watering, over-fertilizing or over-amending the soil to be too rich, transplant shock (if repeatedly moved), not enough sunlight, or something else in its environment. Pests tend to favor trees under stress, but even so, a sapling that small can easily be covered with insect mesh netting to exclude pests since you don't need bees to visit flowers yet for pollination. (It will be at least 5-ish more years until a tree that young is ready to bloom, and even longer until it can fruit). One reason it might be struggling is because it's not the cultivar the parent plant was (if it's a seedling), so it does not have whatever benefit that plant had of certain resistance to disease, the same vigor, and benefit of an older root system that grafted fruit trees for sale have.

The white leaf spots are not something we can diagnose from the video, but a close-up still photo may help. Even so, they are not serious and this time of year, with leaves about to fall off for winter, it is not anything that needs treatment.

The blueberry does not have rust. The stem spotting can be normal as the stems transition with age from smoother greener bark to rougher bark, though some non-rust infections can also cause red patches. Since the leaves look fine, though, we do not think any infection is responsible. Reddening can also be a normal response to stress or factors that don't cause the shrub much damage. Blueberries need acidic soil to thrive, so a laboratory soil test can help determine if a given planting location is suitable. (At-home soil testing kits or probes are harder to read and might not be as accurate.) Blueberries can be grown in containers if needed, but in the ground is preferable.

The trees shown as "cypress" are hard to identify since we can't clearly see the foliage. They look more like Eastern Redcedar, a native juniper species, than leyland cypress. Either way, though, it's perfectly normal and natural for older, lower branches on most evergreens to become bare with age and die back to the trunk. This is because they are shaded by the plant's own upper canopy and they do not generate enough photosynthesis energy for the tree to keep them alive. We do not see anything wrong with the bark or branches in the video, but it's hard to see enough detail without still pictures. We also don't see improper pruning, but again, it's hard to see clearly. We do think we see some sort of hook anchored into the trunk, and if so, anything damaging the bark and entering the wood of a tree has the potential to cause dieback or introduce wood decay to the wound, which is not treatable. Bare branches that lost their foliage due to shade will not regrow (this is normal), so they can be removed if they are an eyesore. Otherwise, they will gradually fall off on their own anyway in time. The loss of inner, older leaves anywhere in the canopy is also perfectly normal. If it seems excessive, than issues like drought (this year's being substantial and still ongoing) or growing in more shade than is ideal in past years likely had an impact.

If the evergreens don't look healthy, see if a certified arborist can come out to look them over. Nothing can be done to increase the foliage abundance in the interior of the canopy, but if they are stressed, the arborist may be able to find the cause so it doesn't worsen.

Are you certain the pawpaw is in fact a pawpaw? We ask because it looks too branched and small-leaved in the video, but it's hard to tell since it's behind a wire mesh. Even though pawpaw is generally deer-resistant, deer (or rabbits, groundhogs, etc.) can chew on the leaves when they are young and easy to reach, especially if the animals are young themselves and still learning what's good to eat.

We suggest that you remove the landscape fabric (weed mat). It will not biodegrade and, if roots get entangled in it as the tree grows, it will be next to impossible to remove later. While more research is needed in this area, there are some concerns that such materials can also interfere with how much oxygen and moisture reach the soil below, which could detriment not only roots but the beneficial soil microbes they rely on. Mulch should suffice as a weed barrier, and as it degrades naturally, will turn into compost that benefits the soil below. You can keep the mulch around a 2- to 3-inch depth, just not touching the trunk itself (use a flat layer, not a "volcano" or mound).

To determine when watering is needed (for the pawpaw or anything else), feel the soil about four to six inches deep. If damp to the touch at that depth, watering can probably wait. If the soil has instead become somewhat dry to the touch at that depth, water well. Your bucket method with holes in the base to slowly drip water into a given area is a good way to water. Our Watering Trees and Shrubs page goes into more detail.

We can't tell what caused the second pawpaw to struggle, but they have a taproot when young, and any stress or damage to the roots when transplanting (being kept in too shallow of a pot when young, maybe) could set a plant back and stunt growth for a while as it generates more energy to fuel root growth. Pawpaw are not fast-growing plants at this age, and like many plants, tend to only be in active growth (above-ground) in spring and early summer. By mid- or late summer, branch and foliage growth is done for the year, though roots are still growing. For now, just give it time and consider removing the fabric. Do not fertilize a struggling tree, as nutrient deficiency is rarely the core issue, and adding nutrients might stress the plant further.

Miri