i have some pines.. thuns.. COMPLETELY brown ... what are you complaining about??? ... lol ..

seem to recall you have horrible clay.. right??? ... year and a half old plants popping out of the ground.. whats that all about???

as to the ones you CUT OFF.. they are all dead.. crikey man ... you cut them off... lol ...

i cant compare my pungens ruby teardrops for it being under 2.5 feet of snow.. on the north side of the house.. it might be june before i see it ... would you prefer such???

anyway ... you have proved many of the buds are green.. and presumably live ... what more can you do [BTW.. you could have just used the prunes to scar the branch to find the green cambian.. w/o full removal] ...

popping out of the ground... well.. fully dormant plants can cope with that pretty well .. this time of year.. its moist.. cool ... humid... just rebury best you can ....

only time will tell.. dont worry about it all that much.. you knew mother nature was a witch ...

look forward to the pix ...

BTW.. dont give up on the one with a dead bud.... who knows if every bud is dead... but dont go cutting more off to find out ... time will tell ...

and dont forget which are very late to bud out ... seems to me.. i am always sure all the pungens are dead.. as they bud out weeks after pines ... and their buds show little swelling until they explode ...

glad to see you back for the season ...

ken

If there's a hole in the ground where it was, then yes, chances are the tree has gone.

;-)

Ken - I didn't cut them off, on a few of the ones in question I just snipped off just a very small piece of one of the branches... maybe just a piece that's a half inch long lol. Just enough so I can examine the branch and cut into one bud. Normally I would just scrape the branch on an ordinary tree... but on a sharp Picea pungens, it's easier just to snip a small piece off.

I plant everything on a slight 1-2" mound so it can drain a little better. The new ones I planted could be a combination of soil that washed away because of the hard rain and the plant being lifted after the rain froze under the plant. As for the Picea pungens 'Maigold' that is 1 year old and got lifted... not to sure. When I planted, it was a quart size container so perhaps it didn't get established well enough last year.

The two I'm going to keep a close eye on and hope they pull through are the two Picea pungens I planted last fall... they were my favorite out of the bunch and of course if mother nature takes anything it'll probably be the two favorites.

I figured out how some of the plants got lifted. I pulled a chamaecyparis out of the ground today. It was ugly... got lifted... most of it was brown. I never really cared to look at this thing. Anyhow, the ground around this plant was frozen. Inside the planting hole was a cup of water. You could literally put your hand down into the water and feel the ice on the rim and bottom of the hole. The ground is frozen, the plant is warm enough to melt the ice which filled the hole with water. that's surprising in that particular location because it's on a slight hill. I don't think my clay was the issue here.

Out in the field it drains well... even after a hard rain you can walk on it hours later and you won't get your feet wet. The snow melted a week ago and it's been good the last week with no wet weather. But the field remains soggy. I got my shovel out and went poking around. In spots you cant dig anymore than 3-4" deep because the ground is frozen causing the water to sit on top. There are spots in my field where I have puddles which is very unusual. The shovel can't even break the ground in these spots.

I took another look at the two pungens I planted last October and they are browning up pretty fast. I'm going to consider those gone, even though they have green buds. I don't know if these pungens are sitting in a bowl of water or not... but I'm not going to pull them out of the ground to see just in case. I tried digging down the side of one just to see, but it was frozen solid.

All my older plants look to be ok... It looks like I'm going to only be planting in spring and praying that the first winter for these plants will be mild. Once the roots get into the surrounding soil they will be ok, it's just a matter of getting them established and through the first winter so this won't happen again.

i knew what you were doing.. and what you meant..

and since you didnt understand mine.. i was pulling your leg..

we call it frost heave in MI .. very problematic.. the smaller the plants get.. and the shallower the roots get

EDIT ===>>> e.g. smaller hosta transplanted too late in fall.. that dont have time to settle in and grab hold.. can be found the following spring .. at ground thaw... completely ejected from the ground... the major problem being.. they are freeze dried by the time we find them a month or two later ....

ken

This post was edited by ken_adrian on Wed, Mar 12, 14 at 10:22

Oh alright... I thought it may have been the wording in my post so I had to read it again just to make sure. Upon walking around the yard yesterday, I found a few more minis pushed up. Which isn't a big deal, I was planning on moving or getting rid of those in the spring. This year I'm going to be more focused on getting my supporting conifers established.... the big guys which will ALL be planted this spring. Enough fooling around with the mini and small dwarfs for the moment. Seems to me they are much harder to get established and they're the ones mostly popping out of the ground.

I have 20 left over from last fall, 13 that should be in next week and 10 that should be in the following. Most are 1 gallons, but I do have a few 2 and 3 gallons.

My problem the last few years is that I spent to much time planting the mini, dwarf and ground cover conifers around the house. Then I also planted a lot of crap companion plants. I'm just going to have to get all 43 of these in the ground and hope for a good first year.

what is happening.. GUESSING ..

is the dichotomy between your clay and your [EDIT: MOUNDING] soil .. is creating a soil mix that does not settle in.. in late fall .. perhaps.. what you are creating on top .. is simply.. to good ... and the plants dont have time to 'grab hold'

how could you insure.. that the fluffy stuff.. on top of your clay.. does not gather and accumulate moisture... so it stays intact in spring???

ken

Here is a link that might be useful: EDIT: frost heave link

This post was edited by ken_adrian on Fri, Mar 14, 14 at 8:10