Is it true that this tree needs to stay consistently moist? What are the ideal conditions for its best growth? Any ideas about max height & growth rate for Vancouver BC? Also, the main leader was broken in shipping and the Nursery suggested we tie the nearest large branch to the broken leader to create a new leader - any comments? Thank you for your help.
Same care for other landscape plants that like regular moisture should work. Will grow more than several metres tall in time, not a shrub. Leaning and forking seem to occur rather often, also being a juvenile foliage variant it is not ironclad hardy. Some specimens occasionally do not lose the winter coloring come spring!
One in Ireland is 23m tall and with a trunk 131cm diameter, so be prepared for it to get quite large! Concur with Ron over the leaning, some I've seen end up with rather grotesque coiled trunks lying along the ground before curving up, and so on. The wood doesn't appear to have the same strength and rigidity that the type species has.
It tends to lean toward the light more than most trees, hence, the lean. A heavy snow or ice build up and over it goes. It's been my experience that grown in decent soil, out in the open with adequate summer water most plants from S.E. Asia require, it will grow straight and acquire a plum color in winter. Without enough water, in poor soil, and cold temperatures , it will turn brown in the winter. Here's a picture of one growing at the Whitney Nursery in Brinnon, Washington. http://home-and-garden.webshots.com/photo/2198287120036511179BWpUxj
Elsewhere in western Washington a couple of the larger examples that have been noted in the past are one with a trunk 6 ft. 10 in. around (1993, Aberdeen) and another 47 ft. high (1995, Chico). See Van Pelt, Champion Trees of Washington State.
