Agreed! Thank you for the feedback. I definitely want to add some limitations to how trees grow in denser situations. I haven't solved this one yet because it adds a bit of complexity to the UI, or, at least, features players will need to properly distribute plants. Hope to work on that soon.
Do you have a wellhouse? This is the room which automates the collection of water from wells. If you do have it, does it have owners that have misc enabled?
As an emergency last resort, you can manually assign collect water jobs on water blocks from the Jobs menu. Make sure to disable other skills as they may ignore that job.