Sticks and Stones

We recently moved into a new house. I love having a brand new house and I really enjoyed the process, but our (large) backyard is dirt and rocks and we have to do our own landscaping. Since there is no shade back there I am fairly anxious to get some trees, so I went to fast-growing-trees.com and ordered some Royal Pawlonias. When my trees arrived, I was somewhat disappointed (make that incredibly disappointed) since I am pretty sure they just sent me sticks instead. The instructions told me to pot said sticks for two weeks and then plant them in the ground, so now I have buckets of dirt outside with sticks in them. The two weeks is almost up, and I am really not sure what to do. I don't even know if these sticks are dead or alive. I think they are perhaps ex-Royal Pawlonia trees. They are guaranteed for one year-- if they die I can send them back. I don't know if I should do it now or later, but I am pretty sure if I put these things in the ground that they are not going to make it, especially since the neighbor kids can't stop using our yard as a throughway. Plus, I think if I returned them that the company would just send me some more sticks. Oh well.