Speak now or forever hold your peace.
On Saturday, I noticed most of the 'Uncle Fogy' Pines all seemed to be growing out of their pots sideways. I like the drooping effect of the 'Unle Fogy' but I didn't want a plant jutting out of my ground at a 35-40° angle. I thought I was rather creative when I planted the ball in the ground sideways.
Here's a line drawing of what I did since the photos of the plant in the ground won't really illustrate my handiwork well-
Next weekend I'll mulch it with a few inches of hardwood chips and what I did won't be nearly as noticeable as it is right now.
I am very pleased with the results. I get the tree I wanted and it's growing up out of the ground toward the heavens now instead of out at an oddball angle.
What's interesting is that the man who helped me stated they planted them that way in the pots intentionally. I thought that was strange but what do I know. His comments may very well have been his attempt at humor and maybe I didn't catch on. Regardless, I love my tree. It was very healthy and I have it in the ground the way I want it.
Here's a photo of the base of the tree in the ground-
This photo shows it much better with a little added blue line to help see hallf of the ball sticking out of the ground-
Here's a photo of how it looks now that it is in the ground-
Here's a close up-
the man who helped me stated they planted them that way in the pots intentionally.
Always a crowd pleaser, and sure to raise some fond memories...Guy usually busts out the old-time lyrics.
"..fat bottom girls, they make the rockin' world go 'round..."
Present company excluded, of course.
I lost an entire reply to this thread from earlier this moring! Bummer.
I dunno. The guy didn't seem like the type to joke around. Both Dode and I read him as being quite serious when he stated they were trnasplanted on an angle intentionally.
Guy dear, I had a long handled shovel. I broke it yesterday. I need to go and get a new handle because it was my favorite. By the end of the day, I crawled over to the bird bath to hoist myself up.
VV dear, I wouldn't exclude present company so fast. I'm thinking maybe one of those last 20 boxes of GirlScout Thin Mint cookies that I ate by myself might have had something to do with the broken shovel but what do I know. Merely speculation.
I say we all buy stock in the company that manufactures and distributes those "Help, I've fallen and I can't get up!" devices. I see a definite need for them these days. While we're all out there buying stock, who manufactures Bengay ointment?
Well, I happen to like the tree, regardless of its start in life in the pot. And Lauren, if that casting director is looking for 2, I'm available :o)
Sorry you broke your shovel. I like my spade better, but that's just me. It just feels better in my hands.....
Hi Equil,
Nice work on the 'Uncle Fogy'... Good name for a plant for a woman of your condition! j/k
One of the only photos I have of Jack Pine cultivars is this plant I ran across at The Harper Collection in Michigan which seemed to have an upright presence, but is described as a groundcover conifer by the American Conifer Society. Nevertheless, I really liked it.
Another Jack Pine, Pinus banksiana 'Girard's Weeper' - Enjoy your tree! - Dax
Hey Terry, you and me can finish digging our holes and go and audition for "Night of the Living Dead". Look at the money they'd save using us after we dug a few holes! No need for expensive make up artists or hair stylists to get that "risen from the earth" look they strive for. Pop in a few white contact lenses and hold our arms out in front of ourselves like we are sleep walking and presto! Instant zombies!
Hey Dax, the tree was named 'Uncle Fogy' not 'Aunt Fogy'! Aside from that my nickname is LDB. I suppose ODG would work just as well too. Long story but I'll respond to just plain Dirt Ball too.
Like your 'Girard's Weeper'. Do you have one?
I chose the 'Uncle Fogy' because of a Christmas story I once saw of a Crooked Christmas Tree and a dove. If mine does well, I will buy two more next year to flank the one in the ground. They really are quite distinctive. I think three of them together would look really nice.
Say, you don't by any chance know where I could pick up a Taxodium distichum 'Fastigiata' do you? I'd like at least two of them.
Hi Equil,
Sooner Plant Farms http://www.soonerplantfarm.com/index.cfm sells the cultivar 'Shawnee Brave' 4-6 footers for 29.95. I like these guys. Take a look at the additional photos as well. Great prices on shipping and packed solidly.
Dax
I enjoy planting trees in no vertical position. I would have planted that tree so you would have a unique shaped trunk for the early years. Guy would probably laugh but I have planted all of my non-native trees at an angle in varying cants. I feel it will make someone along time down the road to question why all the trees on the west side of the house point slightly to the north. Oh well I'm weird. I like to play with trees to make my landscape a little different.
Equil: That's some nice work on the visual explanation there. Between the line drawing and the photos, you got yourself a future in my business! (Visual journalism)
Nice job!
Sooner looks interesting. I found an elm there that I had been looking for. I'd forgotten I even wanted it until I started looking at everything on their site. Nice plants they are offering. Thanks Dax.
Sofer dear... I beat myself up getting the 'Uncle Fogy' in the ground just the way I wanted it and you are putting some of yours in the ground on an angle intentionally? Just goes to show you tree people are never happy with what they have ;)
Hey Joulz, I draw really great stick people too. You'd be really impressed.
Equil, or anybody. I planted Taxodium ascendens distichum from FF, in my yard in 2003. What is the difference between what I planted and Taxodium distichum 'Fastigata'. I don't see Fastigata in my book.
Donna
No, just thinik about it if Guy had planted all his trees at an angle to start with they would all be curved at the base and everywhere a tree was curving at the base we would know that Guy planted it. That will be my legacy like all apple trees in the midwest come from Johnny Appleseed. Wow some day I will be famous and I won't have to do anything horrible to do it. Hee Hee
Hey Donna, You either planted T. ascendens or T. distichum but not both. They're two separate species. One is the Pond Cypress and one is the common Bald Cypress. Umm, they both like a lot of moisture. I've been planting mine right out in the wetlands.
'Fastigiata' is a registered cultivar of the straight species of T. distichum I believe. It was probably a naturally occurring sport that somebody stumbled upon. It was my understanding 'Fastigiata' is more columnar for lack of a better word. It has a form similar to the 'Shawnee Brave' however the 'Shawnee Brave' is allegedly fuller. I need the columnar shape to work in with the straight species T. distichum I've already planted here last year and again this year yet on the other hand, I'd prefer the plants not be as dense in order to accommodate the Larix laricina I'll be planting in the same area. Does this help?
Ahhh, you're creating a legacy. But will you be famous or notorious for your work? Steve, I see more clearly now as to why one would conscientiously choose to plant trees and shrubs at an angle. I'm thinking people are going to think you were blonde... either that or you were planting on a day when you had consumed too many adult beverages but then again, who knows what generations to follow will think.
Exactly!
Hey wait a minute here... me and Terryr are the blondes. We're supposed to be doing things like this! What's this forum being reduced to when the men begin assuming blonde characterisitics?
Men are blonde too you sexist! Now we are standing up to recieve the abuse you women have kept for yourselves. Men Unite and Become One! Really I have always wondered why all people think blondes are women. We Arians are wondering. Hee Hee
OOPs back to the forum. I too like what you did with the dry root tree that was left layered in the sawdust too long.
This message was edited Apr 11, 2006 9:31 AM
Hi Rutholive (Donna),
What you probably have is Taxodium distichum 'Pendens' as none of my reference books nor does the American Conifer Society list a Taxodium ascendens 'Distichum' and also because what you have given as a name for your tree has both the species names to distichum as well as ascendens. There is however a tree which hopefully is what you have called: Taxodium distichum 'Pendens' and it's one of the most magnificent Taxodium's I've ever seen (*Hint Equil*). I do have a photo but not of the fall color this cultivar exhibits which is an intensely colorful mixture of light reds, yellows, and oranges. It's simply breathtaking.
Here it is photographed in August 2005 at The Harper Collection in Tipton, Michigan:
Dax
Then a little information about species ascendens and species distichum.
(Jacobson, Arthur Lee) 'North American Landscape Trees'
Taxodium ascendens
= T. distichum var. imbricarium
= T. imbricarium
= Cupressus disticha var. imbricaria
Taxodium ascendens: "POND CYPRESS. From the Coastal Plain, SE Virginia Less cold-hardy than T. distichum, smaller, with shorter needles (1/5"-1/2") closely held against the twigs. Often gaunt overall, although up close the foliage is fine. The name ascendens refers to the posture of the deciduous branchlets, not to the habit of the tree, and imbricarium refers to the closely overlapping needles. Fall color usually golden-yellow. Usually markedly slender in cultivartion, with short branches. Knees rarely produced, and short. Record: 135' x 23'8" near Newton, GA (1969).
Taxodium distichum
= Cupressus disticha
BALD CYPRESS. COMMON BALD CYPRESS. DECIDUOUS CYPRESS. LOUISIANA CYPRESS. SOUTHERN CYPRESS.. SWAMP CYPRESS. MARSH CYPRESS. GULF CYPRESS. SABINO TREE. From the S United States, essentially. Common in swamps. State Tree of Louisiana. Can live 1, 300 years. Renowned for durable, rot-resistant wood. A 1905 article said ["The name BALD CYPRESS is given it from the broad, spreading, angular branches at the extreme top of the trees, reaching out over the tops of all its fellows of the swamp, its trunk being bare of limbs throught its lenght until these spreading arms are reached."] Peculiar conical excrescences from the roots sometimes form and are known as CYPRESS knees; they can reach 14' in height. Needles flat, 1/2"-3/4" long, borne in two ranks along twigs (hence the epither distichum). Fall color late, golden-or purplish-brown. Bark soft, fibrous reddish-brown. Trunks often widely buttressed. Records: to 150' tall; 146' x 18'9" Lower Wabash Valley, IN (
Hey Equil, that sounds like a plan! We might need a little bit of make-up to appear dead, but the hair part? Nope, got that one covered. Somebody needs to start making up jokes about the dumb blonde men. Or we can just change them....my favorite one......
What do blonde guys and beer bottles have in common?
They're all empty from the neck up.
Now Steve, I don't think any of us have any intentions of keeping all the abuse to ourselves. Aside from that, you and your lovely bride looked rather Georgian as opposed to Arian. Have you been hitting the bottle... literally? If I pick through your hair am I gonna find brown roots?
No need for make-up Terry, just swish your index finger in some nice rich black top soil and then rub it under your eyes and that should do for those nice dark circles under the eyes.
I find this Blonde Man joke much more appropriate-
A woman stopped at a rural gas station and, after filling her tank, she paid the bill and bought a soft drink. As she stood by her car to drink her cola, she watched a couple of blonde men working along the roadside.
One blonde man would dig a hole two or three feet deep and then move on. The other blonde man came along behind and filled in the hole. While one was digging a new hole, the other was about 25 feet behind filling in the old. The men worked right past the lady with the soft drink and went on down the road.
"I can't stand this," said the woman, tossing the can in a trash container and heading down the road toward the men. "Hold it, hold it," she said to the men. "Can you tell me what's going on here with this digging?"
"Well, we work for the county," one of the men said.
"But one of you is digging a hole and the other fills it up. You're not accomplishing anything. Aren't you wasting the county's money?"
"You don't understand, lady," one of the men said, leaning on his shovel and wiping his brow. "Normally there are three of us - me, Rodney and Mike. I dig the hole, Rodney sticks in the tree and Mike here puts the dirt back. Now just because Rodney is sick, that don't mean that Mike and me can't work."
It took me a long time to find a low graft weeping larch, because I HATE lollypop standards. The man at Rich's (I think) was very serious about potting those grafts at an angle, because that is their natural growth pattern. I know I have some photos, but can't find them now. I believe we must have some of the oldest specimens at our MN arb since it is named after a Minneapolis radio show "celebrity." None grow at a vertical, at any time. Uncle Fogy will never grow upwards like a tree unless you train it.
Now watch: now that I've said it, you'll prove me wrong. (And that's why I said it.)
Rick
Rick is my hero!
The man at Rich's (I think) was very serious about potting those grafts at an angle, because that is their natural growth pattern.
Thanks for asking EQ...I've been wondering the same thing....
I think I'll need blow by blow accounts of exactly how to do this and photos would be nice too because I'm sort of a visual person.
You just stick some sort of pipe, or bamboo in the ground beside it and tie a nice bow on it to keep it up.
I didn't even think about all the good ole black dirt! Heck, I've still got some under my fingernails!
A painting contractor was speaking with a woman about her job. In the first room she said she would like a pale blue. The contractor wrote this down and went to the window, opened it, and yelled out "GREEN SIDE UP!" In the second room she told the painter she would like it painted in a soft yellow. He wrote this on his pad, walked to the window, opened it, and yelled "GREEN SIDE UP!" The lady was somewhat curious but she said nothing. In the third room she said she would like it painted a warm rose color. The painter wrote this down, walked to the window, opened it and yelled "GREEN SIDE UP!"
The lady then asked him, "Why do you keep yelling 'green side up'?"
"I'm sorry," came the reply. " I got a new crew of all blonde men and they're laying sod across the street.
Should I use pink bows or can I use a nice shade of sage green?
How can you tell if a blonde man has been using your lawnmower?
The green WELCOME mat is ripped all to shreds.
What's the advantage of being married to a blond man?
You can park in handicapped zones.
What do you call an all-blond skydiving team?
A new version of the Lawn Darts game.
Where do you look for blonds' obituaries?
Under "Home Improvements."
Did you hear about the blond who never learned to waterski?
He couldn't find a lake with a slope.
What do you call a blond in a leather jacket?
A rebel without a clue!
Why did the blond only smell good on the right side?
He didn't know where to buy Left Guard!
A blond is going to London on a plane; how can you steal his
window seat?
Tell him all seats going to London are in the middle row.
How do you make a blonde laugh on Saturday?
Tell him a joke on Tuesday night.
Why did the blonde put his finger over the nail he was hammering?
The noise gave him a headache.
How many blonde men does it take to make a circuit?
Two: one to stand in the bathtub, and another to pass him the
blow dryer!
Why did the blonde boy scale the chain-link fence?
To see what was on the other side.
What's the difference between a blonde man and a tree?
The tree knows when it's being cut down.
How did the blond man moonwalk?
He got nekkid from the waist down and slid his butt along the floor.
Did you hear about the blond man who thought nitrates were cheaper than day rates?
And, last but not least-
Why are most blonde jokes one-liners?
So men will understand them.
Equil and conifers, you are right . Don't know why I wrote the wrong identification.. My tree is Taxodium scandens. It is only 3 years in place, but is very attractive, at about 3 1/2 feet.
The jokes are funny.
Donna
Jeeez, I'm glad my blondness is only from the sun! Funny thing, too, there is not a hint of yellow in it. I guess I'm one of those silver-blondes.
Hee-hee-hee!
Some texts refer to T. ascendens as a variety of T. distichum. Perhaps that's where the confusion started?
Guy S.
Er uh Guy... my kids refer to silvery blond types as Q-Tips.
What kind of gas mileage do you get on that Freestyle again? My husband told me to either clean up my ghetto cruiser car or get rid of it. I feel really bad because it's only a couple years old but I think I'm going to opt to get rid of it. April has been telling me it's about time to sell it because it's almost filled up. I wanted a car but if I get another car I also want to get a good used pick up truck. That's why I'm thinking maybe I better go for something in between. Right now, there is a Bartlett Pear sticking out of my car window, a bale of Canadian sphagnum peat, a box of pots and pans on the passenger seat, an ice scraper from this past winter, ten 2-liters of empty Diet Pepsi bottles on the floor, two bags of top soil, Boy Scout files, soccer gear, 4H supplies, swimming towels, and too many other things to mention. That doesn't include all the other crap in there. I won't even mention what's in the trunk as that thing is about the equivalent of a Michael's Craft store or a Hobby Lobby. Amazing how my house can be some semblance of picked up yet my car looks like homeless people moved in while I wasn't paying attention. So far the Freestyle is my top pick.
Also too, should that C. tenuifolia be budding out by now?
I love the blonde guy jokes especially the county workers. LOL I used to be a blonde for over 35 years and then when I went on thyroid supplement my hair darkened. So I mostly remember my blonde years. Anyway all we germans my age are arien because Hitler told all out parents to breed. too bad the Arien didn't appear.
Equil I just got a VW passat with the diesel engine and get 39 to 42 mpg on the hwy and you can put both seat backs down and a large tree will fit well and with the big trunk you can put a lot of bark back there. though I have an older pickup for the bigger garden stuff.
I am confused with the curve tree thing. All my trees that I have planted crooked are pointing straight up at the crown. They just curve at the lower trunk. I have a Juniper that is native here and it was bulldozed down when the house was built and left. Now I have 5 juniper trees 6 to 8' tall starting off the trunk of the overturned Juniper. A true nurse log.
I'm almost 50 years old and I still couldn't park a German car in my parents' driveway no matter how great the gas mileage was. We don't buy German cars or we'd end up parking on the street visiting my Dad. My Mother made a boyfriend of mine park out on the street some 30 years ago. He thought she was kidding. She wasn't. I thought after my Mom died that my Dad might ease up but he didn't. My one nephew has to park his brand new Jetta on the street. My Dad is a very kind soul but this is his little quirk I guess. The Passat would be too small for me at this stage in my life. I'd like a mini van but those things don't accelerate well and they seem to get blown around on the hi-ways. I bought one and sold it after 3 months. I loved the van but I didn't like getting blown around in my lane with high gusts of winds.
I want the Lexus 350 but I can't possibly condone spending that kind of money on a vehicle that I would have filled to the brim in no time flat. The Lexus has a great big blind spot when changing lanes that I didn't particularly care for that Guy's new Freestyle didn't have. I'm going to have to pick something in the next few months. I think I need to actually go to a few lots and sit in a few vehicles.
I was motivated to look around. On the way to work I saw a Chrysler Pacifica and a Pontiac Torrent that looked decent. Anyone have wither of those?
I don't have wither (or either), but my niece has the Pacifica and thinks it's the greatest van/car/suv ever made. She has two young boys (total hellians) she totes around, but couldn't quite see herself in a van. Vain women---geesh! My notion of Pontiac is they're crap, but that might be outdated and unfair opinion. With the condition GM is in, maybe you should help them out and buy the Pontiac. ;) I wonder what the salesman would think if you brought the vehicle back to the lot with dirt, mulch, leaves, etc. scattered throughout, explaining you had to test it in real world condtions.
Believe it or not I like the size and style of the Torrent the best. It was a little bit more expensive than the Freestyle based on what I just found on line but only by 2k. I've never had a Pontiac before more so because people scared me off by making statements like what you just made about Pontiac. My husband told me they might not be the best choice too. The Freestyle was a comfortable vehicle. That is the only one of the three that I actually sat in and that was only because Guy's wife just bought one for herself and I had to try it. Really nice vehicle and if I hadn't gotten in it, I would have never known that it was so comfortable with no blind spots for passing and changing lanes. I'll probably go with the Freestyle unless I change gears and go for a traditional car and a used PU.
I am going to have to test drive these and see if they have enough oomph to get on the hi-way and merge. I'd like to go on a windy day to see if the center of gravity on them is low enough that I don't feel as if I will get blown off the road. I don't want to take a huge loss again selling a car after owning it for only 3 months. I felt horrible getting rid of that van but one little bit of ice combined with gusts of wind and I was all over the road. I had a Plymouth or maybe it was a Dodge Grand Caravan I think. It was a Grand something or other. Big vehicle. Big mistake purchasing one for me.
Er uh Guy... my kids refer to silvery blond types as Q-Tips.
