YES! I'm so glad larches came up. I think I have seen the "Dunkeld" larch at the VA arboretum ( I know I saw it somewhere a few years ago, and made a mental note to remember the name) and wanted to plant a small grove (3) of them when I finally had a garden that could hold them. I have a special fondness for deciduous conifers. It should be noted the regular European larch will grow here but I've never seen one that looked really happy. There is/was an old one at Oatlands. I also want a Taxodium 'Prairie Sentinel' when it pops back up in the trade. There is a mature one at Brookside and it really is one of the best looking conifers. The branching structure is more consistant than the typical pond cypress. It's a named variety that was actually worthy of being named. Luckily the conifer world hasn't quite fallen prey to the trend elsewhere to name and patent everything even if they are hardly different from the species.

Looking back over the years I have found out that Pinus strobus are usually the first conifers to succumb to adverse weather conditions in the Midwest. Most are vulnerable to excessive heat and drought. They need just the right amount of water to survive under these conditions. To much water or not enough will do them in. I also have foud if they are root bound even the slightest amount that could spell trouble especially if you do surgery before planting. I am currently down to one, 'Angel Falls'. I might have another cultivar lurking some where. It came as a conifer grown in a wooden box. A big conifer that when unpacked had a very fine root system and was not the least root bound. It has performed beautifully over the years. The key for survival with these cultivars centers in the roots. I think they need to be spot on for any chance of survival. Bump them out of the pot at the nursery before you purchase them. Most will be rejects. "I might have another lurking somewhere". I need to go find it. Pretty bad when you don't remember what you are growing. Dave

Well, let me add a general side note here for those who might want to plant some larch trees. At my timberland in the mts of western MD I have experimented a little with larch trees, just to see how they would do. I did this against the advice of one or two foresters I talked to at the time--they said that they would be ruined by attacks of sawflies. Well, yes, I had some attacks, but they never caused too much damage. For a year or two there were really frightening numbers of these green little worms on the trees, but in recent years I haven't noticed any. The worst damage was some growth reduction, and in two cases a bear saw all these tasty things on the young trees--about 12 feet tall at the time--and them down to get at them. Well, to get back to my point--these trees can be stunningly beautiful, especially during the fall, and especially against the dark green color of other conifers. My tallest larch are almost 60 feet tall now and in the fall these yellow/golden cone-shaped spires reaching skyward into a clear blue autumn sky and/or against the green of Norway spruce and white pine is one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen in a forest. In the spring there is also a nice effect. Larch do not really start growth any earlier than other conifers, but they do put out their new green needles on what I understand to be the "spurs," much earlier--maybe three weeks or so before anything else shows any green. And this green color is a really nice fresh bright green. Also a nice effect in the landscape. OK, so why do I stress this in the context of this discussion of the hybrid Dunkeld (Larix x marschlinsii)? Well, my timberland in Garrett County, MD is at 2,700 feet elevation. Now this is clearly "larch country." But down off the mountains one would not expect much success with larch. But, but, but, we have the Dunkeld larch that appears to make it possible to grow larch well in Z6 and possibly even in cooler areas of Z7. So if you folks want to give them a try with the encouragement of the description of the beauties of my larch in the Md mountains, I say yes, go ahead. Oh, just one more note. European larch can be a tough tree, even in Z7, even if it doesn't show very good growth. Thomas Jefferson planted one at Monticello and it survived for about 200 years. It never got to be more than a runt, but it was one of the last two or three surviving trees actually planted by Jefferson himself. If hybrids have "hybrid vigor" that makes them tougher than the parents, there may be more possibilities for the Dunkeld larch than I am touting here. --Spruce

Hi, Edwin, this link can help you with the question where the name 'heldreichii' comes from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosnian_pine especially this part: The species was first described as Pinus heldreichii by the Swiss botanist K. Hermann Christ in honor of Theodor von Heldreich in 1863 from specimens collected on Mount Olympus, and then described a second time as P. leucodermis in 1864; the author of the second description (the Austrian botanist F. Antoine who found it on Orjen above the Bay of Kotor) being unaware of the slightly earlier publication by Christ.