How's Matthew doing Andrea?..from your pics I see it's leafing out now,hope the drama is over now.The fight continues with my plant. Recently had to lop a 6ft Suminagashi down to a 4ft stick...something got in there and killed the canopy.Today noticed one of my 10ft Bloodgoods has lost half it's canopy so had to remove..see pics.Noticed some deep scratch marks on the trunk and branches...I only get domestic cats and foxes so blame the cats.I used to be a cat lover but what with the poo everywhere and now this...well!.. As I've said it's getting to a point when it's not safe for these plants to go dormant here anymore. Anyway not too upset...I'll see how it fills in but have always wished I'd planted something more colourful...they don't even give good fall colour.Got an Osakazuki which I'm fed up with repotting so that may take it's place this autumn :)
They tend to come back strong, I'm sure it will fill out okay. I lost 2\3s of a multi-stem Jordan, took it back to 1 stem with winter pruning and it's coming back strong, also one of my oldest, a Red Pygmy has been given the chop back to the trunk as there was some disease in the main branches, still waiting on this one to come back, but am not too worried, I'm sure in 2 to 3 years you wouldn't even notice. My oldest tree is a plain green dissectum, lost most of the main branches a few years back due to accidental damage, you wouldn't even notice now, but at the time it looked a right off. John
Thanks for the reassurance John,when awake this tree wouldn't have batted an eyelid at the scratches.As I said I've got other trees to take it's place if not happy with the results,though looking back it did have too many branches anyway :) Kinda used to having to chop down maples now,but at least it's not as bad as infections at the base.
Thus far, Matthew keeps plugging along and the infection hasn't spread. But, we haven't gotten to the real challenge of heat and humidity yet - that will be the true test as to whether it pulls through. Keeping my fingers crossed!
