June, 2019
URBAN FOREST NURSERY, INC.
Q2 NEWSLETTER
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Dear
Below is the link to our latest inventory. As always, please contact us if you have any questions about availability or pricing.
Our inventory report now includes all trees in production so our customers can see what we are continuing to grow!
Looking for a Large Specimen Tree?
We have some very nice large caliper trees available.
Varieties include:
- 5" City Sprite Zelkova
- 4.5" Valley Forge Elm
- 4" Emerald Queen Norway Maple
- 4.5"-5.5" Armstrong Maples
- 4.5" Emerald City Tulip Tree
- 4.5" Okushimo Japanese Maple
- 3.5" Pyramidal European Hornbeam
- 3.5" Cornerstone European Hornbeam
- 3.5"-4" Nyssa sylvatica 'Black Tupelo
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Nursery News
Are your trees thirsty?
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About this time every year, we have this discussion. Watering Trees.
Watering trees sounds simple enough. Surprisingly, it's not that easy given that new trees die in the landscape from lack of water every year. It has been especially critical this year as the weather continues to get warmer.
Here's the secret:
Find a way to get water slowly to the root ball. Use a trickling hose, drip irrigation, a TreeGator or a bucket with a small hole in it. Anything to ensure slow delivery so water can gradually soak into the root-ball. Forget sprinkler irrigation and especially rainfall. We cringe whenever we hear someone say, "Oh, I think it's going to rain soon". Unless it's a monsoon, forget any rainfall watering your newly planted tree effectively. Remember,
newly planted trees must live entirely off the moisture in their root-ball
until roots grow away to surrounding soils. Give them a chance.
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FYI
- We grow approximately
180 varieties
of trees
but here are some we have that are hard to find:
- Nyssa & cultivars
- Parrotia & cultivars
- Carpinus caroliniana & cultivars
- Ginkgo & cultivars
- Quercus garryana
- Frontier elm
- Snowcone Styrax
- Many others
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Featured Tree
Syringa reticulata and S. pekinensis
(Lilac Tree)
The large and fragrant flower of the common lilac is a fondly held memory and experience for many of us. Most often planted as a shrub, lilacs have also been grown in tree form for some time. However, they are not used as often as they should as a tree. In addition to the more familiar shrub forms, there are tree forms of this plant. As we get better at selecting small maturing trees for use in smaller spaces, tree lilacs
Syringa reticulata
and
S. pekinensis
are definitely ones to consider.
Tree lilacs are relatively small, at most about 20 to 30 feet tall and 15 to 25 feet wide. Leaves are opposite, single, entire, broad-ovate, 2 to 5 and half inches long and about half as wide. Leaves are dark green on top and grayish green and reticulate (netlike pattern) on the bottom. The undersides might also be glabrous or slightly pubescent. Spring growth appears to be fresh, clean and balanced. Newly emerging leaves have a wine colored hue, turning green as they expand. Bloom time is early summer. Flowers are white to cream color, born on stalks 6 to 12inches tall and 5 to 8inches wide. I have found them to be fragrant and agreeable while Dirr has noted some smell privet-like, un-appealing to some.
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Trunks are for the most part very straight with prefect branch structure at almost a 90 degree angle of attachment before curving upward to form an ascending crown. Twigs and limbs are a bit brittle, somewhat of a concern for shipping or when children like to reach out and grab a limb. A little corrective pruning is beneficial as they age but otherwise are relatively care free trees. Generally, lilacs can be susceptible to disease and frost injury but the selections are found to be more resistant. Transplanting is relatively easy and they favor loose, well drained soils that are slightly acid, although they are known to be tolerant of a wide pH range. They grow best in full sun and will take some shade. They have good drought tolerance once established, important to consider as our climate changes
Fortunately, more and improved varieties continue to reach the market. One of the oldest and well known selections is
Syringa reticulata
‘Ivory Silk’ introduced in 1973, and the ‘
Summer Storm’. Another closely related tree is
Syringa pekinensis ‘
Summer Charm’ and
'China Snow'. Make a point of requesting these for small planting space locations and you might find them more available.
Let me know what your experience is with the tree lilac to share with others in the future.
Jim Barborinas, ISA #PN-0135, ASCA Reg. # 356. TRAQ Qualified
Urban Forest Nursery, Inc.
Urban Forestry Services, Inc.
Mount Vernon, Washington
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Click below to see our latest inventory list. We will be updating it soon and will send out monthly emails to ensure our customers always have the most current information on our availability.
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We have
reached our
pledg
e of
$100,000 to the TREE Fund Endowment Campaign to fund research
,
with a special emphasis on root systems, in order to grow better nursery stock.
Our first $10,000 Research Grant will be awarded every other year in perpetuity starting next year.
To meet that goal, we allocate
d
a portion of each sale to the Endowment
and will continue to do so to increase the amount in the future
.
Go to
www.treefund.org
for more information and challenges facing our urban trees. Thank you for your support!
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