Nay, still having alot of trouble in immediately identifying Rock Elm
saplings from American Elm. I wish it
was as easy as Siberian elm where the small leaves are a sure give
away.

I recently found a Rock Elm whose leaves were "not dense and not
thick" and I found a
American Elm whose leaves were thick and dense and hard to tell apart
from Rock Elm. So I need something
better.

Perhaps it is the reddish pigment in the new leaves that can
distinguish Rock Elm. I notice that
my Rock Elm all have a reddish pigment in their newly formed leaves.


The seed case of Rock Elm is distinctive from American Elm and perhaps
the best clue of all is to
see the winged bark. But on these very young saplings it is not yet
time for winged bark to appear.

Also I question the rate of growth of American versus Rock elm. Rock
elm is supposed to be a slower
grower, but whether that pertains to saplings is doubtful since my
confirmed Rock Elm saplings seem
to grow almost as fast as American elm.

I sure would like to have a sure-fire way of differentiation because
soon I am going to start to graft
and I prefer to not waste time on a sapling that may or may not be
Rock Elm.

Is there a consensus on the most reliable and easiest form of graft?
And is it advisable to graft in
the middle of summer? I will use Siberian elm as rootstock that is
already growing in existing places.
I would like to simply make one cut of the Rock Elm and one cut on the
rootstock and then use
duct tape to bind around the bark interface and hold the stem upright
by secure attachment to a
metal rod and chicken wired as added support from wind.

Or is bud graft the only way to go?

Can grafting be done on a old mature tree that is cut to a stump? I
would think it be the preferred
rootstock since so much energy from the roots would go to any stems
such as a graft stem.

So I wonder if red pigment in new leaves of Rock Elm is a reliable
indicator that it is Rock Elm?

Also, recently I had a pleasure of learning of a new species Zelkova
(spelling) Japanese Elm and that
it is recent to Dutch Elm disease. So I wonder, is Zelkova a possible
rootstock for Rock Elm?

Archimedes Plutonium
www.iw.net/~a_plutonium
whole entire Universe is just one big atom
where dots of the electron-dot-cloud are galaxies