Thanks for such a thoughtful response!
Actually, the earlier comments about the american dogwood (a tree native to
my area) ... bith for and against. It's funny it was mentioned because my
tree guy has located an american dogwood on a person's yard 10- miles
away -- my guy wants 2,200 installed, he'll garantee the tree.
My wife and I drove past the tree a few days ago, I'd say its a 20+ year old
american dogwood -- and perfect specimen that never got the fungus or the
beetle. It's about 18ft high and 15ft round, almost perfectly symetrical...
the stem is about 7 inches diameter -- nice tree
The only concern we have is by placing it where our old american dogwood
finally died of disease and blew over a year ago, we may be putting the new
tree at risk. But then again it's garanteed, and once we do get it
established, we can give it preventative medicine, right?
Kousa's are a safer choice for sure, but a nice original pink blossoming
american dogwood would make a nice centerpiece
Tom
"paghat" wrote in message
news
In article , "Tom Newton"
wrote:
Hi Folks -
I live on Long Island.
Last fall, we lost our beloved american dogwood, which was the
centerpiece
of the backyard. It was 80 years old, big round and craggy, a real gem,
but
it has been dying a slow death from various ailments common to the
species,
and it finally fell in a wind storm in December.
Anyway, there's a void out there in the backyard that my wife and I
can't
stand anymore. We'd like another nice round show-piece type of tree in
that
spot, perhaps a Kousa Dogwood or a Japanese Red, but the nursery size
versions of these trees are tiny... and will take forever to grow to the
size we like.
So at this point we're considering having a tree company locate us a
mature
tree locally and transplant it here with a budget of about $2500.
Besides a
Kousa or a Jap Red, are there any other recommendations out there?
Thanks for any advice.
Tom
You should call around to growers until you find a specialist who doesn't
merely "find" mature trees to move for you, but acclimates them before
sales -- usually a sideline of tree nurseries & hybriders & grafting
companies who have all the tree-moving equipment so also salvage
interesting trees before housing are torn down or whatnot, or take them
from salvagers to acclimate for later sale. The companies that merely
"find & move" the trees don't have a very good success rate, maybe 70% of
the trees die if they've merely been ripped ou of some future construction
sight & plopped in a hole in another yard. But growers who also acclimate
salvaged finds for sale a year or two later get some really nice things &
really know how to baby them through those first stressful months
following a dig-up & root-shortening. They'll usually guarantee them for
a year. Some retail nursery near you probably also just trucks in
container-grown bigger maples & beeches & bigger field-grown cedars & such
-- not many nurseries have the clientelle & the space, but most regions
have one or two places that have impressive larger tree stocks (& they'll
know where to get items bigger still, but you may find a 15 to 20 foot
tree is more than sufficient to start with).
I love maples & they should be available in all reasonable sizes up to 20
feet without searching too distantly. If they can be selected in autumn
you'll know for sure you have great autumn colors -- not all are of equal
merit in autumn no matter how lovely in spring. But bigger Japanese maples
may make your $2,500 budget look awfully shy of enough. Most commonly
gardened trees surprise me by their affordability, but with Japanese
maples it's shocking what some of them go for past twelve feet.
Some pretty good-sized beeches in the 10-15 foot range tend to be very
affordable, & they're great trees that bulk up & heighten rapidly. I'm
seriously enamored of beeches & one of the sadnesses of having only a
small bit of land to garden is I cannot collect beeches as easily as
crocuses -- I'd have twenty different kinds if I owned enough land.
They're mostly container-grown even at surprisingly large sizes, are
trouble-free in the ground, & come in all sorts of shapes & leaf-colors &
leaf-shapes, & they grow fast without getting weak or outgrowing a yard.
Kousa I'm only moderately fond of, but there are some stranger lesser-seen
dogwoods that turn up for sale from time to time. It's too bad you're not
a northwesterner as I could send you right to a couple places that'd have
almost-affordable trees at sizes that impress -- most places around the
nation can't match the good prices we get here, but the bigger specimens
are certainly available in most places for a bigger price.
The rich variety of cedar cultivars is also very impressive, many shapes &
sizes available. If you got a fifteen-footer cheap with a rootball
surprisingly small for the tree's height, some of those will put on 18
inches a year & bulk up around the base pretty fast too, yet many of the
named cultivars max out at 30 or 40 feet so never get big enough to
threaten a house.
Plan to drive a little distance when you find out which are the nurseries
that do stock and/or acclimate larger trees. When you see them in front of
you you'll see so many options.
-paghat the ratgirl
--
"Of what are you afraid, my child?" inquired the kindly teacher.
"Oh, sir! The flowers, they are wild," replied the timid creature.
-from Peter Newell's "Wild Flowers"
See the Garden of Paghat the Ratgirl: http://www.paghat.com/