Trees, Shrubs and Conifers: It's about time...Yellowwood, 1 by malusman

malusman wrote:
VV,

Great thread! Yellowwood is my favorite tree. For us in the north, where cold limits what can be grown, it's a real gem. Once one sees a mature plant in flower, there is no way not to love it. I only have a few observations about it. In tougher sites, it seems to do fine for a period, then start to dieback.....from something. You seem to see the opposite so perhaps the few trees that I can watch are suffering from some other malady. I've not paid too much attention and there's not a whole lot in the area to casually observe. The one plant that I see daily at work is about 30 years old and quite pleased to be where it is - up on a berm with ditch that runs by. It also get some irrigation from the lawn sprinklers. It seems to flower more heavily every other year. Some trees flower younger than others. I planted one at my parents house as an abused container tree, really abused. The soil is about as black as coal and an old drainage tile passes with in a few feet of it. I don't know if it still drains anything and the tree is on top of a small hill. It sat in the ground for 2 years making a minimal amount of shoots and leaves. On year #3 it seemed to be ashamed that the 'Autumn Blaze' Maple (also very abused, container grown) that I'd planted a year later was out growing it. It grew 3' out of nearly every terminal bud that year and almost as much for the next 3 years. I daresay that if the trees were cut down 3 years ago and measured, the biomass above ground would have been quite similar. Since then it has slowed down to a much more respectable 18"/year while the maple has continued to grow like it's Silver Maple ancestors. I've observed exactly one flower raceme on it in the 8 years that it's been in the ground. I have high hopes for it this year, like I have every year before. Here's for hope: http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c16/erniew/plants/Cladrast... To the contrary, a fellow employee took home a bareroot liner (6' branched) and had flowers on the 3rd spring. Go figure. Fall color can be quite good, but some years it probably won't win any shows. Looks like the slide scanning is coming right along. Looking good!

Best Regards,
Ernie