9th annual Lawn Thread 2018

[dendrite]

Great spot for a water tolerant, running bamboo. I'm sure the state would approve.

[Baroclinic Zone]

Just now, dryslot said:

Berries love acidic soil, So a quick soil test would give you an idea of what to plant without amending.

Yeah, I was just basing my thoughts on what looks like a sunny exposure with the ground not too dry being next to wetlands and the likelihood that the soil is acidic since this is New England.

[dryslot]

1 minute ago, Baroclinic Zone said:

Yeah, I was just basing my thoughts on what looks like a sunny exposure with the ground not too dry being next to wetlands and the likelihood that the soil is acidic since this is New England.

Berries would thrive in that environment.

[OceanStWx]

From what I remember of the lot prior to clearing, there were maples, white pine, and some white birch.

[mreaves]

5 hours ago, tamarack said:

I'd delay a guess until I could pluck a leaf and see if the sap is clear or milky. or until I saw a bud.  For both species, there's enough variability due to genetics and position (leaves in full sun are different from those in the shade) to create considerable overlap in characteristics.

I always think that the sharper looking maple leaves are the sugar maple and the more rounded ones are Norway.  If that makes any sense.

[tamarack]

On ‎6‎/‎6‎/‎2018 at 10:11 AM, dendrite said:

Didn’t know I could tell by the mature bark. The large tree definitely looks more like sugar bark than norway based on pics I’ve seen online. 

 

Also, thanks to Bob, tamarack, and Mitch for the help.

Those pics seal the deal - sugar maple.  A Norway of that size would have bark reminiscent of white ash, only a darker gray.

[wxeyeNH]

From my DD run this morning.   Lots of brown lawns developing around the hood!  Really unusual for early June

[dendrite]

Damn. Did @CoastalWx get to that lawn too?

[HoarfrostHubb]

Jeez...looks like late July or August in that pic... burned out

[wxeyeNH]

I don't usually look at this thread but saw the tree post.  I am trying to repopulate American Chestnuts on my property.  I have a 20-year-old Chinese American hybrid growing and it's doing well.  A friend of mine knows someone who is growing 100% American Chestnuts and he gave us 2.   Planted  last year, so far so good.  I was down in Wellesley Mass at my niece's graduation and noticed they had a very old American Chestnut.  Placard said planted 1899.  Very cool to see...

[Baroclinic Zone]

5 minutes ago, dendrite said:

Damn. Did @CoastalWx get to that lawn too?

Pit stop on the way. 

[tamarack]

1 hour ago, wxeyeNH said:

I don't usually look at this thread but saw the tree post.  I am trying to repopulate American Chestnuts on my property.  I have a 20-year-old Chinese American hybrid growing and it's doing well.  A friend of mine knows someone who is growing 100% American Chestnuts and he gave us 2.   Planted  last year, so far so good.  I was down in Wellesley Mass at my niece's graduation and noticed they had a very old American Chestnut.  Placard said planted 1899.  Very cool to see...

If you haven't already, check out the American Chestnut Foundation.  They're doing Chinese-American crosses, with the goal of a 4th-gen cross (15/16 American) that's fully resistant to the blight.  They often have earlier crosses to give to folks willing to plant/tend them.  At your place, Id recommend cages or planting tubes, as deer like those leaves/buds.  I haven't checked in the ACF recently, so I can't say where they are in the process.

[dendrite]

1 hour ago, tamarack said:

If you haven't already, check out the American Chestnut Foundation.  They're doing Chinese-American crosses, with the goal of a 4th-gen cross (15/16 American) that's fully resistant to the blight.  They often have earlier crosses to give to folks willing to plant/tend them.  At your place, Id recommend cages or planting tubes, as deer like those leaves/buds.  I haven't checked in the ACF recently, so I can't say where they are in the process.

Sounds like Gene’s place would be a preferred location.

Quote

Site Requirements
1) Space: Saplings will be planted no less than 30 feet apart from each other. This spacing
allows for anticipated tree growth and cross-pollination. Multiple trees are needed
because American chestnut does not self-pollinate.
2) Soil: Soil requirements include that soils have a pH between 4.5 and 6.0, are well
drained, and preferably on a slope. A 6-8 inch layer of dark topsoil with good humus
(organic) content is preferred and ledge should be at least 4 feet below the soil surface.
3) Sunlight: The site needs to receive full or nearly full sunlight (80% minimum). These
trees will not flower without adequate sun exposure.
4) Site Selection: The site should be in a high visibility area and feature interpretive signs
that identify the host and highlight the American chestnut restoration story. A frequently used area, such as a Town Common, is not recommended because mature American chestnuts produce multiple and very prickly burs.

 

[RUNNAWAYICEBERG]

10 hours ago, HoarfrostHubb said:

Jeez...looks like late July or August in that pic... burned out

NE severe drought season underway.  

[tamarack]

15 hours ago, dendrite said:

Sounds like Gene’s place would be a preferred location.

 

Most America chestnuts have either male or female flowers, not both, so at least half a dozen should be planted.  And those burrs/spikes are long and lethal; leather gloves are highly recommended for handling.  The spikes do soften as the hulls get ready to open, but the local squirrels usually have that softening timed to the minute. 

[BrianW]

The damage from the emerald ash borer in CT is alarming. I drive all over the state for my job and just about every ash tree is pretty much completely dead. I didnt realize that billions of them are going to be wiped our. They are now listed 1 step above being extinct as critically endangered. I also read they are now detected in  Northern VT so all of northern new englands ash trees are pretty much doomed.

I have been treating my ash trees with insectside to some sucess. I only have about a 20 percent canopy loss but all the other ash in my area are completely bare. 

 

North America the emerald ash borer is an invasive species, highly destructive to ash trees in its introduced range. The damage of this insect rivals that of Chestnut blight and Dutch Elm Disease.^[17] To put its damage in perspective, the number of chestnuts killed by the Chestnut blight was around 3.5 billion chestnut trees while there are 3.5 billion ash trees in Ohio alone. Dutch Elm Disease killed only 200 million elm trees while EAB threatens 7.5 billion ash trees in the United States. The insect threatens the entire North American genus Fraxinus, while past invasive tree pests have only threatened a single species within a genus. 

[dendrite]

What would you guys do for these small branches on my cherry tree? I have poultry fencing around it so I don’t know what got to it last night to scrape/chew the bark off. Let it go for the season? Prune in March? Prune now? Try to repair it in some way?

Sorry for the blurry pic. It’s difficult to get a focused upclose pic with the ipad.

[eekuasepinniW]

1 hour ago, dendrite said:

What would you guys do for these small branches on my cherry tree? I have poultry fencing around it so I don’t know what got to it last night to scrape/chew the bark off. Let it go for the season? Prune in March? Prune now? Try to repair it in some way?

Sorry for the blurry pic. It’s difficult to get a focused upclose pic with the ipad.

You don't need to do anything at all.  It'll heal those little scrapes just fine.

[dendrite]

9 minutes ago, eekuasepinniW said:

You don't need to do anything at all.  It'll heal those little scrapes just fine.

This tree is a millennial though. It wants to be cradled and nurtured.

[tamarack]

21 hours ago, BrianW said:

The damage from the emerald ash borer in CT is alarming. I drive all over the state for my job and just about every ash tree is pretty much completely dead. I didnt realize that billions of them are going to be wiped our. They are now listed 1 step above being extinct as critically endangered. I also read they are now detected in  Northern VT so all of northern new englands ash trees are pretty much doomed.

I have been treating my ash trees with insectside to some sucess. I only have about a 20 percent canopy loss but all the other ash in my area are completely bare. 

 

North America the emerald ash borer is an invasive species, highly destructive to ash trees in its introduced range. The damage of this insect rivals that of Chestnut blight and Dutch Elm Disease.^[17] To put its damage in perspective, the number of chestnuts killed by the Chestnut blight was around 3.5 billion chestnut trees while there are 3.5 billion ash trees in Ohio alone. Dutch Elm Disease killed only 200 million elm trees while EAB threatens 7.5 billion ash trees in the United States. The insect threatens the entire North American genus Fraxinus, while past invasive tree pests have only threatened a single species within a genus. 

I'm guessing that those 3.5 billion OH as trees include saplings and perhaps seedlings, while the 3.5 billion chestnuts were larger trees.  I've read that one in four trees in the eastern hardwood forest was a chestnut, and given the way trees/forests were measured 100+ years ago, those were all tall overstory trees.  However, the "not just species, but genus" points to another huge impact on forests.  Other species will fill in the gaps, as oaks (mostly) did after chestnut blight, but the forest will not be the same.

EAB has been detected in Maine, not adjacent to its establishment in NH but in Madawaska.  The bug had been found across the St. John in Edmundston, NB a year or two before, probably transported from farther west in firewood or pallets.  That far north the native woods have just brown ash, found mainly in swampy ground and not at all abundant, which might limit the rate of advance. 

[BrianW]

14 minutes ago, tamarack said:

I'm guessing that those 3.5 billion OH as trees include saplings and perhaps seedlings, while the 3.5 billion chestnuts were larger trees.  I've read that one in four trees in the eastern hardwood forest was a chestnut, and given the way trees/forests were measured 100+ years ago, those were all tall overstory trees.  However, the "not just species, but genus" points to another huge impact on forests.  Other species will fill in the gaps, as oaks (mostly) did after chestnut blight, but the forest will not be the same.

EAB has been detected in Maine, not adjacent to its establishment in NH but in Madawaska.  The bug had been found across the St. John in Edmundston, NB a year or two before, probably transported from farther west in firewood or pallets.  That far north the native woods have just brown ash, found mainly in swampy ground and not at all abundant, which might limit the rate of advance. 

Interesting article on evasive insects.

 

For Vermont, in particular, the prospect of an alien invasion by the Asian longhorned beetle has horror-movie undertones. It is not because the larvae eat trees from the inside out, or that they feed on 13 species of hardwoods — all of which can be found in state’s hardwood forests.

It is that their preferred species are maple: Norway, red and sugar.

Invasive Asian longhorned beetles on a maple tree. Photo courtesy of USDA.

The scenario this conjures — the possible cost to the state’s economy, the mega-million dollar maple industry, tourism, the very image of Vermont — imagine an autumn color palette minus all the reds — is incalculable and unimaginable, so most people prefer not to.

“The potential impact on Vermont — the loss of maple. It would be … ” Meredith Whitney, the UVM extension service’s forest pest education coordinator, pauses to search for the right word. “Horrible.”

 

https://vtdigger.org/2018/04/01/emerald-ash-borer-broadens-base-vermont-alien-insects-lurk/

[dendrite]

Just need to breed those beetles to only eat Norways.

[wxeyeNH]

So many Ash trees around here.  I have one in my backyard that is the centerpiece of my flower beds. Also one next to the road in my front yard. I didn't realize that the  Asian longhorned beetle kills  about all of the ash trees.  Really sad.  

About the Chestnut trees.  I knew they were wiped out.  25 years ago a nursery was trying to grow a hybrid Asia/American chestnut tree.  I bought one.  It is doing great, about 20 feet tall.  Then 2 years ago a neighbor had a friend that was having success in growing 100% baby American Chestnut trees.  He gave me a 12" sapling.  It is also doing great and is about 3 feet tall. Here is a picture of my frontyard with the hybrid chestnut and ash tree behind it.

 

[tamarack]

18 hours ago, wxeyeNH said:

So many Ash trees around here.  I have one in my backyard that is the centerpiece of my flower beds. Also one next to the road in my front yard. I didn't realize that the  Asian longhorned beetle kills  about all of the ash trees.  Really sad.  

About the Chestnut trees.  I knew they were wiped out.  25 years ago a nursery was trying to grow a hybrid Asia/American chestnut tree.  I bought one.  It is doing great, about 20 feet tall.  Then 2 years ago a neighbor had a friend that was having success in growing 100% baby American Chestnut trees.  He gave me a 12" sapling.  It is also doing great and is about 3 feet tall. Here is a picture of my frontyard with the hybrid chestnut and ash tree behind it.

 

Most abundant species on my 62 acres of forest:  Red maple, balsam fir, white ash, brown ash, in that order.  The two ash species are about 20% of the volume but probably more than 1/3 of actual trees, with brown ash nearly pure (some RM) on some wet acres.  Not looking forward to the arrival of EAB.

Nice looking chestnut, though the form looks more Chinese than American - bushy for max nut production.  Hope it and the smaller one (how do you keep the deer from destroying it) continue to prosper.

The vigor of chestnut stumps/roots is amazing.  In January 1989 we thinned a 30-year-old white pine plantation on the state lot in Topsham (midcoast.)  Prior to the pine being planted in Sept 1959, that 15 or so acres had been a market garden ("Best turnips in Maine!") for at least 20 years before that - furrows remain visible even now after last winter's 2nd thinning.  I set up some growth plots after the 1st thin, and when I did the remeasure in October 1989, there was a 5-ft-tall American chestnut in one of the skid trails.  The only way such a tree can achieve that height in one season is from sprouting, and in this case the sprouts had to originate in whatever roots or stump fragments that were beneath the plow depth,  50+ years after the land was cleared and plowed, those fragments retained enough vigor to produce that tall sprout, and once started, the tree grew amazingly well through 2010, reaching 50'+ tall and averaging 1/2"/year diameter increment, while producing nuts from about 2005 on.  Unfortunately, it showed signs of blight in 2012, and by 2016 everything above 20' was dead.  The lower portion now looks like a bottle brush, with abundant epicormic sprouts, but I expect the disease to continue downward to ground level.  The 16" diameter older tree used for controlled pollination during the 20-oughts has also died back to ground level.

[wxeyeNH]

Tamarack,   The pure American Chestnut was given to me when it was about 10" tall.  So I think this is the third summer for it.  I planted it in my lower pasture about 50 feet from the dirt road.  The deer usually stay away from the road and the tree was mostly buried in snow.  Now it is really growing so I will put deer fencing around it.  It does have a main stem but as you can see the lower branches are pretty low.  Should I do anything or just let it grow as is?

I am not really a tree person and thought the Chestnut blight had passed now that the Chestnuts are gone, guess not.  I was down at Wellesley college last week for my nieces graduation.  Beautiful campus with huge old trees.  I spotted an American Chestnut.  Walked over and there was a stone saying 1899.  Cool to see such an old tree.

Here is my American Chestnut. This thread reminds me to go down and water it.  Soil is bone dry.  I had a second and idiot me ran it over when it was tiny.  Argghh...

[tamarack]

2 hours ago, wxeyeNH said:

Tamarack,   The pure American Chestnut was given to me when it was about 10" tall.  So I think this is the third summer for it.  I planted it in my lower pasture about 50 feet from the dirt road.  The deer usually stay away from the road and the tree was mostly buried in snow.  Now it is really growing so I will put deer fencing around it.  It does have a main stem but as you can see the lower branches are pretty low.  Should I do anything or just let it grow as is?

I am not really a tree person and thought the Chestnut blight had passed now that the Chestnuts are gone, guess not.  I was down at Wellesley college last week for my nieces graduation.  Beautiful campus with huge old trees.  I spotted an American Chestnut.  Walked over and there was a stone saying 1899.  Cool to see such an old tree.

Here is my American Chestnut. This thread reminds me to go down and water it.  Soil is bone dry.  I had a second and idiot me ran it over when it was tiny.  Argghh...

I would not prune it, as even the tiny wounds on that small tree would offer an opening for the spores.  Near that Topsham lot I found years ago a healthy chestnut 7-8" in diameter on a private lot.  A couple years later I saw that, during a timber harvest, that tree had been pruned on one side to make room for a logyard, and was stone dead.  I can't help thinking that all those wounds led to its demise.  Another example is some chestnuts planted adjacent to the Maine Forest Service entomology lab in Augusta in 1969.  For nearly 30 years they grew straight, tall (60'+) and unblemished, until they lost many of their limbs in the 1998 ice storm.  In two years all were dead. 

I've read that the fungus can live on oak trees without harming them, thus keeping the disease present.  One of my co-workers (now retired) found some chestnut on a public lot about 25 miles NNW of BGR, AFAIK the most northerly natural-origin specimens in the Northeast.  He had patchcuts made to the south of several of the larger trees (12-17" diameter) to encourage their regeneration.  The tactic has succeeded, but the largest and (formerly most vigorous) of the overstory chestnuts has been blighted.  Those half-dozen or so chestnuts were in closed-canopy forest probably dozens of miles from any other of their kind, and upwind of them all.

[wxeyeNH]

41 minutes ago, tamarack said:

I would not prune it, as even the tiny wounds on that small tree would offer an opening for the spores.  Near that Topsham lot I found years ago a healthy chestnut 7-8" in diameter on a private lot.  A couple years later I saw that, during a timber harvest, that tree had been pruned on one side to make room for a logyard, and was stone dead.  I can't help thinking that all those wounds led to its demise.  Another example is some chestnuts planted adjacent to the Maine Forest Service entomology lab in Augusta in 1969.  For nearly 30 years they grew straight, tall (60'+) and unblemished, until they lost many of their limbs in the 1998 ice storm.  In two years all were dead. 

I've read that the fungus can live on oak trees without harming them, thus keeping the disease present.  One of my co-workers (now retired) found some chestnut on a public lot about 25 miles NNW of BGR, AFAIK the most northerly natural-origin specimens in the Northeast.  He had patchcuts made to the south of several of the larger trees (12-17" diameter) to encourage their regeneration.  The tactic has succeeded, but the largest and (formerly most vigorous) of the overstory chestnuts has been blighted.  Those half-dozen or so chestnuts were in closed-canopy forest probably dozens of miles from any other of their kind, and upwind of them all.

Great info thanks so much!  100 years ago our forests must have been so much diversified.  Large elms, chestnuts.  Now the ash will be gone.  Guess it fits the pattern of decreasing wildlife of all kinds...

[dryslot]

Dutch elm disease devastated a lot of trees that were in the 100yr+ range here, It was a shame to see there demise in the 70's and 80's.

[tamarack]

2 hours ago, dryslot said:

Dutch elm disease devastated a lot of trees that were in the 100yr+ range here, It was a shame to see there demise in the 70's and 80's.

And many cities chose to replace those dying elms with Norway maple.  Lose-lose.

[wxeyeNH]

Tamarack,  you had said that American Chestnuts are really great at regrowing..  Like I said in a previous post I had another small 10"  saplings and stupid me ran it over  with the lawn tractor this spring.  Right to 1" of it coming out of the ground.   I walked into the pasture and checked and its sprouting a couple of new small leaves. Soil is bone dry but I gave it a good watering so maybe (hopefully) it will continue growing.