It's been a swings and roundabouts kind of year for my collection, and a mixed couple of years for me in general. I had kept all my 'rare' cultivars at work the previous 2 years, as we have lots of cold frames and a high-walled garden so plenty of space and options for moving things around into ideal sun/shade etc and protecting over winter. I'd bought them all from Steven Roff and Hippopottering so they come small and young, I'd managed to get some decent growth on all of them. Since I bought a new house last December, I decided it was time to finally bring my collection home. The first mistake I made was moving them all into the greenhouse at work for a few weeks in March, thinking I could leaf them out quicker and extend the growing season. Once they'd all emerged I moved them to cold frames for a couple of weeks to harden off and then brought them all home in April and put them in a corner of my garden which only gets 2 hours of direct sunlight, and has a sort of triangle of high fencing around it, which I thought meant shelter from wind. Unfortunately I hadn't realised that it actually creates a vortex of wind which spirals round, and the wind during Spring this year was very persistent... So I ended up losing some 25 trees to wind burn and scorch. Half of them had a second attempt to leaf out, but the late spring into summer was so damn hot that they all failed. I've killed most of my favourite cultivars which took a few years to collect, but it's been a useful learning curve and the new garden has shown me which varieties are tougher than I thought. I've also added a few new cultivars to my collection, and hopefully buying slightly bigger plants to start with will pay off. Losses - Miwa, Fenna, Como, Olivia, Sawa Chidore, Kasan Nishiki, Tiger Rose, Grandma/Baby/First/Amber Ghost, Itami Nishiki, Reticulatum Purple, Hino Tori Nishiki, Kamagata, Kasagiyama, Sagara Nishiki, Komon Nishiki, Mama Fu, Hessei, Radiant, Patricia, Taro Yama. Pretty gutted as it'll take me a while to find one or two in there I really want to replace.
I'm sorry for your losses! It sounds like you've got a hell of a tough lesson! Hopefully there will be no follow-up lesson!
Sorry to hear about this, those are some crushing losses, I'm sure they were beautiful too. I notice you're using some AirPots. These dry out ridiculously fast, especially at the smaller sizes (the 1l can kill a small maple in about 3 days if conditions are bad). Wind increases evapotranspiration, so those pots may have needed daily watering, even early in the year. Don't get me wrong, AirPots are great, just a little tricky. You might want to try some Ercole, which accomplish the same purpose but don't dry out as fast. They're a h*ll of a lot cheaper, too (although still much more than garden pots). Best, -E
