Lovely!! Could you provdie us with a list of the cultivars we're seeing here? You say they're all doing well in full sun, so I think it might be helpful for some of us to know what does well here in the East.
The cultivars in the west walk garden are listed below. A.P. ‘Moonfire’ A.P. ‘Viridis’ A.P. ‘Ever Red’ A.P. ‘Green Star’ A.P. ‘Shishio Improved’ A.P. ‘Oridono nishiki’ A.C. ‘Monroe’ A.P. ‘Emperor 1’ A.P. ‘Red Feather’ A.P. ‘Sango kaku’ A.P. ‘Burgundy Lace’ A.P. ‘Komachi hime’ A.P. seedling (variegated) A.P. ‘Red Dragon’ A.S. ‘Junihitoye’ A.P. ‘Hubbs Red Willow’ A.P. ‘Higasayama’ A.P. ‘Wou nishiki’ A.P. ‘Moonfire’ My garden is located at the New Jersey shore and we are zone 7B. The interesting thing about my area is although we are zone 7B we do not get as warm or hot as most locations due to the fact that we are so close to the ocean. The cool waters also keep the temps cooler in the spring so we are later to leaf out than many zone 6 locations to our west. Please keep in mind that full sun in my area is not similar to full sun in other zone 7 locations. These are only my observations over the last 30 years or so of gardening in this area and have no scientific backing.
I have lived waterfront in a few locations on the west coast and my observations are similar to yours. My plants have been the last to start, last to quit, weather not as cold in the winter and not as warm in the summer. Proximity to a very large body of water causes this because water has a relatively high specific heat. Here's a link to a nice article on specific heat. http://www.sciencebyjones.com/specific_heat1.htm. But in short, water can store a lot of heat and releases it slowly. This principle is also what helps our bodies maintain a homeostatic temperature.
about 20 feet apart Bigger than my garden lolol My dream is to own such a sized garden one day but will have to wait for the lottery win. I almost had the win this week with the first three numbers out being mine, but only for a tenner...*grin Beautiful garden Ed you obviosly worked darned hard. Have you any before images? my favorite images are the two right ones.
Thanks for the compliments on the garden. This one was build before I had a digital camera. I will have to check back in the photo boxes to see if there is a before shot of the west walk garden. I do have some before and after shots of some of my newer areas of the garden. Maybe I will start a seperate post on that topic. Ed
I started a palmatum hedge ten or twelve years ago. I had, as usual, hundreds of one-year-old palmatum seedlings, and I wanted to block the yard from the street and cover an ugly fence, so I chose a nice variety of seedlings based, not on their summer or fall color, but on their spring color. I've had to prune them pretty hard several times a year to keep them leafy toward ground level--my palmatum seedlings seem to strongly favor the growth in full sun and lose whatever is shaded. So I top them with bonsai tools at least twice a year, and even more pruning would be better. For a few days every year, the whole hedge is pretty spectacular. It's about 10 feet tall now and would be much taller if I didn't wack it so much. I've been interested to see over the years that the spring colors I originally chose seem to be reflected in the fall colors--even though, in summer, the hedge is essentially green (although there are faint red tinges on several plants). Something else--when I was a fanatic about cultivars (I had several hundred at one point), I lost them all the time. I think I've seen estimates on this forum that some collectors would lose 5%-10% per year, and that was true of me, too. But I've never lost a tree in the hedge, even though they are too crowded, and I wonder if it's because I cut them back so hard that they stay more-or-less juvenile. One other thing. As it happened, one of the trees I stuck in the hedge is one of my favorites. It's a tsuma type, with a dark border around the leaf edge for a few weeks in spring. That's the other picture. (Assuming there are any photos--I think I added them in the attachments section, but I don't see them in the preview post. Will try again if I failed.)
Good question Whis. First, sorry to be such a noob about uploading photos. Even now, the little one on the left looks pretty ridiculous. Trust me, looks okay when it's 14" wide. Maybe I'll take another tomorrow, if it stops raining... I don't know whether type of propagation affects susceptibility to fungal pathogens. The hedge is all seedlings, and I've had no losses to vascular fungus, but I can think of at least two seedling trees I've lost to fungus over the years. One was the only remaining tree I grew from seed I bought from Vertrees, back when he had a little seed business for a while, so it was a great loss. I think it was an offspring of 'Hogyoku.' But then, I've also lost trees grown from cuttings and grafts, and I've got plenty of healthy trees grown from cuttings and grafts and seed, too. Seems to me that my vigorous trees are more susceptible, but this could be a function of age, or time of pruning, or sterility of pruning tools, or the resistance of certain cultivars, or the spore dispersal time of already-infected trees, or the severity of the previous winter, or having bought infected trees, or the timing of the initial frost, or planting in a spot where there was a previously infected tree...the list is endless, and I just don't know the answer. I could hazard a few tentative generalizations: 1. Trees in the hedge all seem fine. 2. I have good spots on my property--good soil, good sun--and bad spots, in dense shade and with root competition from other trees. Over all, I rarely have fungus problems with the trees in the BAD spots. 3. I no longer seem to have problems with 50 or so trees I grow in pots. They get pruned severely in winter, root and branch, every few years. I used to lose one once in a while, but not any more. Let me mention something I tried a few years ago. My best "specimen" tree a few years ago was a 'Seiryu,' which I grew from a cutting I got from, I think, Kellygreen, about 16 years ago. I planted it in the ground maybe 12 years ago, and it quickly grew into a big beautiful tree, maybe 15' tall and wide, with a form like a slightly squashed sphere. About 5 years ago, I started losing branches to verticillium (or one of its relatives). I'd cut off a major branch, and then next year another--the form was getting ruined. A few years ago, I saw the characteristic linear dead black bark creeping up a few other branches, and I said to myself--well, it's going to die anyway, let's try something radical. So I hunted down every infected twig on the tree and cut them off, and when a major branch was infected, I cut the bark back with a razor blade to healthy cambium. Sometimes I had to cut off the bark halfway around the branch, for a linear distance of 3 or 4 feet (I never girdled a branch, of course). So far--perhaps 3 years later--it seems to have worked. Even the branches that I debarked severely have recovered. And the tree has almost regained its shape. So here's hoping. Worth a try if you've got a bad case but at least a strip of bark on the branch is uninfected.
Daniel, Thanks for those details. Wondering what is in your potted soil mix. It seems you attribute vigor in the potted plants to consistent pruning. How long have you had trees in pots and what size pots are you using? Appreciate your expertise. Gil Ed's garden is a marvel.
I've used all kinds of potting soils, from straight garden soil (when I ran out of everything else) to the typical peat-and-perlite mix. My favorite is ground conifer bark, but it does break down over a couple of years and has to be replaced, and it's hard to come by here in NY. Whatever the mix, I like to add ground granite, which is sold here as "chick grit," to improve drainage and add weight to keep trees from blowing over, and maybe to acidify the soil a little. Ideally, I repot my trees every other year, and when I do I prune roots and branches. Some trees I've been growing this way for 15 years. I think the ideal time to repot is in spring, just before the trees break dormancy, but I've done it at every time of year, which works pretty well as long as I'm paying attention. My biggest pots are about 2 feet wide and 18 inches deep. Now that I've figured out how to add photos, here's another--A. pseudosieboldianum in fall color. This is a stupendous plant for me--the leaves are as immaculate now as they were in May--nothing bothers it.
Thanks Daniel. I'm starting to believe that the potting mix is at times needlessly perplexing. Next year I'm going to use this local product mixed w leaf mould I've been making, keeping it extremely simple. I'll avoid getting further off topic. Great picture i have a very small Acer pseudosieboldianum ssp. takesimense.
Daniel first many thanks!your maples experience is enormous!and you write very easy and very well.... ciao
