i will restate my position ... do you care what your tulips look like in august ... do you care what your mock orange looks like in late summer... etc.. etc ... every plant has its prime season, and just collect enough plants.. that you have something new coming into its prime every other week or so ... so you have something fresh to look at .. and so you can forget about that which is past its prime for that season ... at the link are a few of this years pix finally ... go to a good nursery .. not BIGBOXSTORE... and ask the manager to order one in for you.. on his next shipment ... this plant is worth the premium ... or contact whass and find out who he mail ordered his from ... just as there are bigboxstore... there are the mail order equivalent .... you need some experiences with QUALITY mail order ... and i hate to say it.. but if you dont pay at lest $100 ... you will most likely not be pleased .... i understand budget matters to many of us... but if you have to skip $4 coffees for a month or two.. which will pay off in the long run .. i have a million justifications for buying a quality.. to die for.. plant ... ken i had to spray.. to get rid of the dwarf ... Here is a link that might be useful: link

Dax, the picture in the link you attached looks EXACTLY like my tree! Good call! The damaged trunk does face southwest, and gets a lot of wind and rough weather. Too late to wrap the trunk? Now that I know what the problem most likely is, I can better research the "cure"! Many thanks!

I bought one in 2005, and I also bought a purple-leaved weeping beech. Both are growing slowly but steadily. My Tri is about 6 ft. tall, maybe 7, and the weeper is 10 ft. tall. Both costed double the price Ken quoted, but his purchase had to be awhile ago, because I saw Tri-Colored Beeches last year for 300.00 at one nursery, barely a stick. They were about 3 ft. tall, and that was potted! It will pay you to shop around before you buy, even if it takes all summer. Mine both get good morning sun, some afternoon, then they are shaded by my pines. When I saw this post, I thought, "are my buds Hairy?" lol Had to go look. Mine are still tightly wrapped. :-) Ken, I hope mine looks a great as yours does someday!!

The company replied, and told me that if I researched Ryusens, the characteristics would all be the same = same cultivar even if not same clone. Unless they thought Joe Public wouldn't be able to tell the difference between the two anyway, and since information on 'Eric's Weeping' was scarce descriptions of the other would do. Yes: it's not unusual for wholesale growers to have "their own introductions" that look a lot like existing, familiar varieties with different naming. For instance I've had a grower representative in my area use the same phrasing to characterize a conifer that had their own naming on it as was used about the 'Eric's Weeping'. That is that it had the same features as another, widely sold kind. As with the response about the 'Eric's Weeping' it wasn't an explicit admission that they had put their own name on an established variety, but... I've also had a grower here explain an unfamiliar variety name for a flowering tree they were offering by saying that it consisted of propagations of unlabeled specimens that were already on the property when they bought it. That they had actually assumed that this existing planting was the same kind as a variety they knew in the old country. But had gone ahead and made up a new name for their own sales here in the US. The way they came right out with this story made me think such looseness with cultivar names was thought to be standard operating procedure in the industry. There certainly are cultivars that have acquired multiple synonyms over time, same as with various wild species plants.