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Betula nigra question, Cornus question

13 years ago

There's a large Betula nigra which has produced many seedlings here. How and when can the seedlings be trained to be multi-stemmed?

I brought plants to my current garden. A couple of Cornus seeds must have tagged along and are now about a foot tall. Is there any sure way to decide if it's Cornus alternifolia or Cornus controversa? I want to keep the former but not the latter.

Both trees were present in the old neighborhood.

Thank you.

Carol

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Comments (5)

hortster
13 years ago
After varying success planting multiple river birch seedlings together to grow clumps, the field foreman for a nursery I worked at used a different method that worked much better. He would plant single seedlings, grow them for a year and the following spring would cut them off at the ground. They would usually send up multiple stems. The spring after that he would select three or four of the strongest stems and prune out the rest.
The advantage of having all the shoots on one root system vs. planting multiple seedlings together is that the multiples would seldom compete evenly and the stems would develop at different rates, leaving some strong and some weak. One root system tends to develop all the stems more evenly.
hortster
carol23_gw
Original Author
13 years ago
Horster, thank you so much! I was wondering about how the clump was achieved. Having seen Lagerstroemia with 4 plants per pot, I thought it could be done like that. however, it looks like everything is fused together on the tree I had planted and the original larger one on the property.
I appreciate your help! Fabulous!

Here are a couple Cornus pictures. The species look so similar but I think the Asian species may have thicker leaves.
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hortster
13 years ago
Is there any possiblilty that it could be C. sericea (redosier)? Foliage and lenticels on the stems look a lot like those that I have...
hortster
carol23_gw
Original Author
13 years ago
Just went out to double check. Leaves are alternate as are branching pattern. I have been under the impression that these were the only 2 species like that.
hortster
13 years ago
Went to Dirr. You are correct!
hortster

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