My Mother's Tricolor Beech, Gone!

14 years ago

While I was visiting my mother I checked our old house to see how the gardens are doing and I nearly died; the people who live there now removed the old tricolor beech! How can people be so stupid?! Unbelievable!

For the last 15 years I have been looking for one for myself and nothing! They even got rid of the old azalea. It had an 8" trunk when I was little in the '70's and 80's and it was 15' x 10' big so who knows how much it has grown since then. The mountain ash, the hydrangeas, the camellia, all gone. All mature and rare specimans. It's a good thing she dug up all the smaller azaleas, roses and mountain laurels before she moved.

I can't believe what they have done. All that remains of those old gardens is the dogwood. Everything else is gone. It looks so plain and drab, just like every other landscape clone from Home Depot.

Uugh. I wish I lived closer. At least I could have taken cuttings until one rooted. If only they knew what they had.

Just needed to vent. Few understand how rare the tricolors are and even my garden friends have never seen one.

Sadly,

Fleethart

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Comments (7)

iforgotitsonevermind
14 years ago
You never know. It could have been infested by ambrosia beetle or some other bug that killed it. Or perhaps beech bark disease, cankers etc.
Maybe the azaleas died of old age.
Don't rush to conclusions. It's not like they took it out and stuck the WNY equivalent of queen palms and bananas.

Forest farm has some itty bitty ones.
fleethart
Original Author
14 years ago
It always had problems with aphids, but they were mostly a nuisance. It just seems unlikely that everything died. More like they yanked everything and replaced them with big box generic look-a-likes. I had coffee with our old neighbors and they couldn't believe it either. It's south of Seattle and my mother gets down to Oregon fairly often. I will tell her Forestfarm has some and she can go look at them. Thanks for the tip!
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Embothrium
14 years ago
This tree is not rare in this region at all. If she lives near Seattle she can find another at multiple outlets here most years. One recent spring there was even some at CostCo.

Judging by the number of posts about it there are numbers of places selling it elsewhere in the northern US as well.
iforgotitsonevermind
14 years ago
Your costcos sell trees there ?!?
Golly. The PNW sounds like heaven with all those places to find hundreds of rare cultivars.
fleethart
Original Author
14 years ago
None of them look like the old beech with the clearly defined edge of white then pink then purple. The others seem to resemble pink and purple camouflage and pointier than I remember. I actually cannot find any photos on Google images which look right. Maybe it was mis-identified, but definitly a beech. THere are a number of trees in Portland as I recall but I have never seen them in the summer. Copper beech is also abundant. When I lived in OR I regularly haunted the nurseries but mostly for little things since i lived in an apartment. Costco is a great place for peonies. They were in bags for $3 or so for 5 eyes this spring. Nothing rare, but good old standbys. Also this spring I found Gravenstein apple trees offered at a local nursery and Willamette raspberry. I have not seen those here in NY. The airline must have thought I was nuts, packing around dormant raspberries! In April the WSU master gardeners have a plant sale in Puyallup which sounds very interesting.
Well, hopefully my mother will find a tree or next time I get out there I will certainly look for it.
Embothrium
14 years ago
The ones with less white are the same cultivar, that is 'Purpurea Tricolor' ('Roseomarginata'). After the summer heat has been working on it for awhile it often looks like a copper beech with a pink glow, a somewhat weird effect.

'Tricolor' (green variegated with white and pink) is extinct or nearly so.

6 locations are given by A.L. Jacobson for 'Purpurea Tricolor' in TREES OF SEATTLE - SECOND EDITION (2006), the tallest one 56 1/2' high in Kubota Gardens Park.
rhizo_1 (North AL) zone 7
14 years ago
I find it very telling about our human attachment to trees that you still refer to it (and think of it) as your Mother's Tricolor Beech. ;-) Even though it isn't.

Most of us would feel the same way.

My Mother's Tricolor Beech, Gone!

Comments (7)

iforgotitsonevermind

fleethart
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My Mother's Tricolor Beech, Gone!

Comments (7)

iforgotitsonevermind

fleethartOriginal Author

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Embothrium

iforgotitsonevermind

fleethartOriginal Author

Embothrium

rhizo_1 (North AL) zone 7

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fleethart
Original Author

fleethart
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