I received my Friends of Westonbirt magazine today, it has an interesting article about their Palmatum Penaphyllum specimen. I saw the tree they talk about in the article in 2019 (about 8foot tall) and again in subsequent years and it never look very healthy at all, it just looked like it was generally struggling and had areas of black necrosis on the leaves. The article says that Dan Crowley - the arboretum curator (who we met at the TMSBI Autumn meeting, who was very welcoming and engaging) and his team fed the tree with carefully dosed sugar water over a period of time and the photo shows a remarkable improvement. I didn’t make it to Westonbirt this Spring or summer so Ive not seen it this year, but I’ll make an effort to visit this AMAZING arboretum in the coming months. Reading elsewhere it’s suggested that this treatment should only be used for a short period of time and only as a last resort, particularly when a tree has not settled in to a new spot. Just thought I’d share this
Hi Rich, It was great to meet you at the Westonbirt get-together. As I guess you know, Dan is Vice-Chair of TMSBI. He regularly contributes to our eBulletin "Maple Matters", and did a piece on this tree during the summer issue, with quite a few pictures. Apparently the tree died back to the ground a couple of years ago. I should probably try the sugar approach on some weak trees in pots, but I always fear the consequences: ants! A. pentaphyllum is really such a complicated tree to grow in our climates. I think it likes hot, wet summers combined with dry, and not too cold, winters. The tree in San Francisco did well for years, and an Aussie friend grows then very successfully there. I have some small seedlings from him, as well as some larger from Spain (the pic), but everything I had in the ground -- one graft and 6 large seedlings -- died one winter. I had grandiose plans for a "grove" of them, but as usual got punished for my hubris! They were in about the most favourable spot I've got, too. Seriously, they sometimes just don't leaf out, no obvious disease... I will wait until I have a really big one, before trying again in the ground. I wonder if you missed the last eBulletin? I had an article about the Japanese "reds." I've written one about the meaning of "shōjō" for the next issue, coming soon. Cheers, -E
