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Forest Pansy Redbud question

15 years ago

I am thinking about planting a forest pansy redbud in my backyard with one, maybe two dogwood. The redbud would be to the left of the dogwood. (s) How far apart should I space them? The dog woods would be to the right, with one behind the other.

Also, a question about the forst pansy: does the coloration at some point become more greenish, with pink purple hues, as opposed to the purple plum which remains pretty much the same purplish color all summer long?

thanks in advance.

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Comments (7)

Iris GW
15 years ago
Find out the mature width of the tree (one site says 'Forest Pansy' has a mature spread of 25-35 feet wide) and divide by 2 (since width is the total of both sides). That means you probably don't want to plant anything closer than 15 feet to the trunk of this tree. But of course the other tree has a width too. Assuming you are getting Cornus florida, the mature width appears to be 15-20 feet. So allow for 10 feet on each side. So now add that 10 feet to the 15 of the other and you want these planted about 25 feet apart. Make sense? You can be more or less generous as you see fit.

I have 'Forest Pansy' - the color does mellow a bit over the season; if it gets enough sun, it should retain a soft purplish cast (too little sun and it reverts to green). Definitely not as deep as purple plum.

Hope that helps.
Embothrium
15 years ago
Planting distance for long term development is the same as estimated crown spread - no need to make it more complicated. If they all grow 30' wide, plant them 30' apart. One grows 20' wide, another 15' - picture each as a circle that wide on a piece of paper and space accordingly.

That's if you are planting a sort of border of shrubby trees. Tree-like specimens with elevated crowns register as accent points in the landscape and should be widely spaced as otherwise a cluttered effect may result.

When all the trees are the same kind they can be grouped closely together to form a grove or clump.

'Forest Pansy' does fade in hot weather, so that you end up with only the newest leaves being purple later in the season. One on a Seattle (USDA 8) street had an average crown spread of more than 30' some years ago.

Native pretty consistently to hot summer climates only, redbuds need a warm situation with good drainage; many plantings have problems with dieback if not well sited.
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'Forest Pansy' bronzes out here in the frequently dull and cool Seattle area also. Typical summer condition is purple leaves on the ends, where the leaves are the youngest, bronze leaves behind those and greenish leaves in the center. Oldest leaves being lost to inadequate watering (a common condition in my area, where "it rains all the time" but summers are actually quite droughty) will have premature fall color. Many other kinds of purple-leaved trees have poor color retention. The basic cause it their genetics, the best selections stay a good deep purple. 'Forest Pansy' is simply not one of those selections.
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The only redbuds safe in zone 4 are the Univ. of MN strain, realistically. The northernmost parts of the redbuds range are really zone 5 in parts of MI, Ontario, Iowa, and Ohio (if you use the old USDA map). I'm not even sure if the MN strain is actually MN native or just something that was bred by selection over time in Minnesota winters to pull out the hardiest of the hardiest. Forest Pansy, and most of the cultivars, often come from more southern selections and are even less hardy - probably zone 6 at best. 'Appalachian Red' is probably OK to zone 5, but not 4. 'Columbus Hardy' (from Ohio, as you'd expect with the name) is also zone 5, maybe 4B from what I've seen. The other cultivars are all probably 5B-6A. If you're in zone 4, I'd stick with the MN strain. Zone 5, I'd stick with MN strain plus seedgrown from northern sources and Columbus Hardy. Zone 6-9 any of them should do well, but in z9 you might not get enough winter chill for the northern strains so I'd use a southern seed source. They pretty much all do fine here in Maryland, zone 7. This post was edited by hairmetal4ever on Fri, Jun 13, 14 at 12:10
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Ken - sure they do. Just maybe not as early as they do in MI :-) Hairmetal - the zones were not created to provide that information. They only reflect a 30 year compilation of average minimum low temps, nothing more. Even the USDA admits the hardiness zones lack any supporting data that would expand their usage to cover such thing like duration of cold periods, amount of snow cover, soil moisture, amount of winter sun, etc. In their words "Such factors are not taken into account in the USDA PHZM......All PHZMs are just guides. The Sunset zonal maps may be much more applicable to the need to determine appropriate chill periods, as they DO take many other climate issues besides just winter lows into account and are far more detailed than the USDA zone system. But they should be takes as guides only as well. Eastern redbuds are listed as appropriately hardy for all 24 of the Sunset western climate zones, yet they certainly do not thrive in them all equally well. Most struggle up here in the PNW and tend to be short lived at best.
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The cultivar comes out strongly colored and then becomes less purple as the season advances. It does not leaf out green and then turn purple later. Some purple leaved tree cultivars do yield a percentage of purple seedlings but since tree cultivars are typically considered to be clonal (unlike named seed strains of flowering annuals and annual vegetables) a purple seedling of a 'Forest Pansy' would still not be an example of that same named variety. An exception is certain Rose Family trees such as mountain ashes and hawthorns that may give off apomictic seedlings, that is ones resulting from a particular asexual seed production process on the tree. Such seedlings are clones of the parent specimen. But when seeds are gathered from these trees and seedlings raised from them it is not known under ordinary circumstances if apomixis was involved until the plants raised get big enough to show they are true to type.
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Toronado3800 Zone 6 St Louis
15 years ago
Depends on the look you're going for.

I have regular redbuds and dogwoods in all kinds of random places in my yard. They're not huge trees, really understory trees in the forest. I saw some of both hiking today. Popping up along the edges of a trail. Sometimes a little "crowding" can produce neatly shaped trees.
vancleaveterry
15 years ago
Another color to consider adding to the mix is from "Appalachian Red" Redbuds. Quite different, a neon majenta is how I'd describe it.
sandyinva
Original Author
15 years ago
Thanks all. I think I will need to pace it out. Should I go for 2 dogwood, I could probably space them a little closer together.

The biggest issue may be finding the space due to competition from exising roots. I have removed 2 large junipers, and a pine tree, but there are existng roots from those as well as other trees. I can raise the bed there a little. Any suggestions on what tools to use to remove roots that are no longer connected to anything?
Toronado3800 Zone 6 St Louis
15 years ago
IF you're sure there is nothing underground to cut I've done wonders removing honeysuckle roots with a sawzall. Not as fast as real heavy equipment but a reasonable price and great for other cutting tasks too.

When I've cut down ash and maple trees that don't re-sprout I just leave the roots in the ground and let nature take it's course. I figure there are plenty of dead roots decomposing under other trees in the forest so it's all part of nature if ya can get your new plants in around them.
picea
15 years ago
Another redbud cultivar to look into is Little woody. It is smaller and with a very nice leaf.

As far as removing roots I used a Mattocks.

David

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