Tough Winter for Redbuds

Anyone else have a tough winter with redbuds. I have several here and many suffered greatly this past winter. Ace of hearts all but dead, hearts of gold consistently loses half it's size each winter, burgundy hearts not quite dead - yet, forest pansy one dead one with significant branch die back.

Several also did fine, don egulf, eastern RB, covey, silver cloud?, and the new red weeper who's name escapes me at the moment lost some top growth although bouncing back nicely, avondale, and the white chinese rb are ok.

Thought with all the snow here in the NE they would have been well protected.

I've found some of the cultivars are weak growers.
The straight species is endemic here - I pull hundreds of seedlings every summer.
So I was surprised that I have a hard time with many of the cultivars.
I have 4-5 chinese redbud cultivars, all of which struggle for some reason.
Silver Cloud pouted for years, before finally settling in.
I had a full sized Oklahoma which suddenly died mid-summer a few years ago.
I've tried cercis racemosa a half dozen times, never with success,
though it's supposedly hardy here.

interesting - i will be moving two out to more protected sites and replacing with japanese maples

You both know that pretty much all the clonal selections are grafted or budded. You may also realize that - unless you do it yourself - you don't have any control over the understock quality or provenance that the selection is grafted/budded upon.

You have to trust the supplier, who may not be the propagator either. So...

Imagine a quite southerly selection, then grafted onto seedling provenance from yet another southerly source - then rudely introduced to the relatively strange (Yankee, yet) north Massachusetts landscape. A fit of pique?

St. Louis, while milder overall, also has its share of climate and environmental anomalies compared to where a plant originated and thrived.

Take a look at where some of these clones were selected, and ask about the understock whenever purchasing a plant which you expect to have some permanence in the landscape.

'Silver Cloud' was a selected seedling in a nursery row in Oldham County, KY. 'Covey' was selected in upstate NY, I'm pretty sure. Many of the newest forms are the result of work in NC. You can see how there might be some difference in performance, despite these all originating as Cercis canadensis. Mix in the other species mentioned (with various and sundry understock) and that's quite the soup.

VV you should know not to use north massachusetts and "yankee" in the same sentence - this is the heart of red sox nation! :)

thanks for the input - silver cloud planted last fall came through fine - ruby falls planted at the same time lost a third of its top although showing great growth so i think it will do fine. burgundy hearts (in the ground 3 yrs) and hearts of gold (2 yrs) will be the ones moved to the front hill to live or die - the only attention they will receive will be watering after the move.

A friend who lives about 25 miles northwest of me gave me a few of her wild redbud seedlings last year and they did pretty good. Here's a pic of the biggest one. I wasn't aiming for it, so it's not real clear, but it's just to the left of the purple alliums.

And, here it is from another view - the arching branch on lower right side. It didn't bloom this year, but I think it takes a couple years. Well, it survived 20" of snow from our February blizzard, so I think it's pretty tough!

My dog, Briana, is so funny - no matter what I'm taking a picture of she gets in it and I usually don't notice until I download the pic!!

saw an old established forest pansy dead to the main leader today - must have been the winter here.

saw a mature forest pansy in the town next to me with all new growth coming from the trunk - just a tough year here - moved two out to a protected spot and replaced with japanese maples.

Which Japanese maples did you use?

hi gsox - i took ashi zuru out of a container and a large murakumo

and i thought you would ask about the red bud's:)

I have three Forest Pansys that were planted last fall, and all three came through in great shape.
All were from Rare Find.
I also have six saplings that came through in similarly good shape.
They were planted in spring of '07 as seedlings.

that is great - i think it was just a tough winter here although i thought the high snow fall would have been a good blanket

My Ruby Falls is suffering from transplant shock I think....hope it bounces back....any recommendations? should I fertilize?

I wouldn't fertilize it if it's stressed from transplanting--wait for it to settle in a bit first.

i agree with ecrane jen - or the two i just transplanted on suffered a bit from the move, both seem to be ok for now.

okey dokey

OK- I never, ever, ever am going to post about good fortune EVER again.

Despite my LITERALLY knocking on wood YESTERDAY when I said all my Forest Pansies were fine- today, just now- one day later- a lower limb was just broken off my most focal specimen. It was fine when I walked the yard this morning.

Yeah, it could have been the wind and rain that just swept through but my suspicions lie more in the direction of my ridiculous dogs.
I thought I had the trees limbed up high enough to clear a galloping Wolfhound, but clearly not- despite the cage and the iron bar within.

Grrr.....

I swear, the success of a plant is inversely proportional to the desire we have to see it thrive.
If these trees thought I hated them they would be outgrowing the property and spreading like mint.

Very true! I've found that although I have hundreds of perfectly easy to replace plants in my garden, invariably the gophers always seek out & chew the roots off of the rare & expensive specimen that I acquired at the botanical garden plant sale and may never be able to find again.

at least the RB's are a fast growing tree!

no dogs here for that reason alone - wife would love one

OK, here's proof RBs are NOT weak - Tuesday in the Chicago area, we had a vicious, monster storm - gusts up to 80 mph. Huge branches ripped off and thrown yards away, parts of peoples roofing all over, and many trees down. No power for 250,000. So, my silver maples, natch, shed unwanted branches and I lost a bareroot corylus americana I planted this year. Wild redbud saplings put in last year? Nary a leaf lost. Ya gotta love it!

good for you!

As an example of the feast or famine phenomenon,
redbuds around here are not only native, they're almost a nuisance.
Mind you, I love redbuds, but we have zillions of seedlings we have to remove.
Here's a miniature 'redbud seedling forest' which is rather typical throughout the entire yard.
Of course, I have dozens of mature redbuds; so it's not like I yank them all.
But enough, already!

They just love our climate, soil, humidity ...

wow i have not see any seedlings here. most of the rb's that suffered are showing great come back ability - hoping for the best