I've seen the larch;^)

15 years ago

Was at "The Centennial House" in Madison, Wisconsin yesterday as part of a horticultural field day. This house, now about 120 years old, is on the University campus and was formerly the residence of the schools' dean. Much of interest on these grounds, gardenwise, but Ricks' post about his dead topped Norway spruce prompts this post. There is a large larch tree there, in a prominent location. This tree lost most of its' crown in a storm a few years back, and the curator decided to leave it standing with only its first one or two tiers of branches remaining. It has since put on much growth on these remaining branches. It is an oddity in this form, but still providing aesthetic interest, as the few branches still on the tree are quite large and spreading. I know a picture would help, but I forgot my camera, even if I was savy at posting pics.

At any rate, it does show that even a conifer that has lost nearly its' entire top still can function in the landscape.

It was said that a large pocket of decay was at the point where the breakage occurred, and that heavy snow caused it to fail. Seems just a bit rare, to me anyway, to have a member of the pine family succumb to decay in this fashion. Also, odd that a deciduous conifer would be the one to catch too much snow.

It is my understanding that these grounds are open to the public pretty much 24/7. If you're ever in Madison, take a look. Very nice gardens, including many dwarf conifers and such.

+oM

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Comments (13)

treelover3
15 years ago
Hi +oM,
I was just at this same garden last weekend. I setup a tour for the MN Chapter of the North American Rock Garden Society and this was one of our stops.

Ed Glover, who oversees a lot of the Rock Garden maintenance and planting, gave us a tour and told us all about the garden and its history. I took a bunch of pics of the garden and that old larch. It's a very cool plant. I will have to post a couple of photos so Resin can tell us whether it's an American Larch or if it's European or Asian. The tree was loaded with cones.

If I remember correctly, Ed said the larch was planted in 1899 and was one of 5 or 6 seedlings that were planted around the campus. The larch in this garden is the only one of the bunch that showed a weeping habit. All of the others are/were very upright growing trees. It's a wonderful garden and anyone who is anywhere near Madison should stop and see the garden. It's spectacular!
Mike
tlÂ³
treelover3
15 years ago
Here are a few pics of the larch:

Madison Larch Cones:

Madison Larch Trunk:

Madison Larch Sprawl:

Resin,
Can you identify this larch species for us? I have a few other photos if you'd like to see more.
Thanks,
Mike
tlÂ³
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pineresin
15 years ago
Interesting! The cones look very like Dunkeld Larch Larix Ã marschlinsii, which if correct, with its 1899 planting date, would make it among first of this hybrid anywhere. The first in Britain were planted 1897, grown from seed collected in 1895/6 from some 1885-planted Japanese Larches growing next to European Larches at Dunkeld in Scotland; I wonder if this tree could be from the same seed source? Is its origin known?

Resin
treelover3
15 years ago
Hi Resin,
Thanks.

No, I don't know the origin of this plant, but I have Ed's email address and I will send him an email to get more info. He works at the U of WI at Madison in the Oncology dept. I have his U email address so it could be a few days before I get a reply (it's summer break time).
Thanks,
Mike
tlÂ³
treelover3
15 years ago
One other note of interest - all attempts to propagate this larch have failed. Grafting has been tried many, many times and not one graft has been successful.

If this is a Dunkeld larch, would it need to be grafted onto Dunkeld larch understock for the graft to be successful?
Mike
tlÂ³
pineresin
15 years ago
Strange! I've never heard of graft incompatibility between larches. I've even seen larch grafted successfully on douglas-fir (maybe they should try that?!).

Maybe because the tree is old? But even there, the regrowth after the top broke off should be somewhat rejuvenated.

Resin
wisconsitom
Original Author
15 years ago
Thanks Treelover! Great place to visit. I assumed the larch was a European, just on account of what I thought would have been planted there and then.

I'm all for good planning when it comes to garden design. But....equally important, IMO, is knowing how to work with accidents and events that happen along the way.

+oM
salicaceae
15 years ago
I have some pre-damage photos of the tree from a few years ago. It was a very irregular and architectural tree then. Wisonsin has many strange larches including the "Poet's larch" which is a mature European larch that was ripped out of the ground by a tornado and re-planted...it survived!
treelover3
15 years ago
Jason,
Can you post your pics? I would love to see what the larch originally looked like.
Thanks,
Mike
salicaceae
15 years ago
There is a photo from 2005 in the gallery...
greenman28 NorCal 7b/8a
15 years ago
I'd like to see the image....but the gallery is nearly impossible to navigate. Any chance of a link, or perhaps simply the address to the gallery page?

I've searched most recent photos, this week's archive, and I've entered various search terms....

Thanks!

Josh
treelover3
15 years ago
Josh,
Simply go back to the main threads page for conifers and click on "gallery" in the middle-top of the page and the photos are in the first two threads on the page that comes up.

What gallery are you going to that is impossible to navigate?
greenman28 NorCal 7b/8a
15 years ago
Alright, now I've seen it! ;)
Thanks, guys. I was trying to find the pic through the main GardenWeb galleries....what a mistake!
Thanks again,

Josh

I've seen the larch;^)

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I've seen the larch;^)

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