Frans Fontaine Horbeam Trees - Arrived

The anticipation has been killing me.  I've been waiting for six weeks for this day:  when our Frans Fontaine Columnar Hornbeam trees arrive.  That's the pile of eight of them after they had been delivered by the landscaper and before they were hauled into position.  These are 2.5" caliper trees and they are about 12' tall and - at their widest - about 30" wide.  Up near the top, where they will be showing over the fence, they're about 10" to 12" wide currently.

I posted a bit ago showing the markings on the ground where these trees are going including the spacing - which is about 6' apart.  And here's a look from the other direction (looking from front to rear yard).

The trees are just starting to leaf out, but are already capable of screening somewhat.  Look at this photo below that shows how when looking 'through' them, you can see how they screen our house.  Also, you'll note that these have limbs about two-to-three feet from the root ball.  Do we limb these up?  Or leave them alone?  My instincts tell me, based on what these cost(!!), that I'm not going to touch them for a couple of seasons.  Leave them go all this Summer, see where they are next Spring and then leave them alone for the entire year again.  Prune (for the first time) in late Winter/early Spring of 2020.

Once they get dug in and installed, I'll post more photos of where we are currently.  With the spacing we're going with (5' to 6' apart), we're NOT going to get a hedge/full screen out of the gate, but given a few seasons of growth, I'm hoping we'll close up the gaps and will have quite a bit of added privacy.  Check out this post from last year with an example photo of what we're going for with our sideyard.