While I'm replanting my woods due to disastrous hurricane damage, I've decided to plant as many different types of laurels as I can. I've ordered persea/machilus thunbergii and lindera strychnifolia from Woodlanders in Aiken, South Carolina and lindera erythrocarpum and l. praecox from Forest Farm in Williams, Oregon. The ones from Woodlanders are supposed to be propagated there, and I'm sure Forest Farm is the same - I don't think any of these plants are imported, with the possibility of importing more Asian bugs. For me to be planting anything from Japan or China is quite a departure! I generally only plant native plants or plants that are native to areas real close to my area - I don't even plant cultivars, just the species. My 5 1/2 wooded acres are full of Chinese privet, Japanese honeysuckle, and Japanese climbing fern, so I can see for myself that many Asian species are much tougher than our native counterparts - somehow, my area has escaped kudzu. I pull these invaders all the time - you should see some of the deformed trunks on dogwood trees cause by Japanese honeysuckle twining around the trunk like a boa constrictor! :( But I imagine that the only hope we'll have of growing a laurel that's too tough for the Asian beetles to bore or at least too tough for them to completely exterminate is with Asian laurels. If I can grow a laurel that palamedes and/or spicebush swallowtails will lay eggs on, whose leaves the caterpillars can eat and grow successfully to maturity on, then at least there'll be some tough Asian laurels that might not get the beetles and ensuing fungus. If it ever looks like any of my foreign laurels are becoming invasive, I'll certainly get rid of them. Woodlanders was out of l. fragrans or I would have gotten that one, too. If anybody can send me seeds of foreign laurels or give me the name of any nurseries that carry one or more of them, please let me know. Most butterflies, including palamedes and spicebush swallowtails, are very 'family specific' as to what they'll lay eggs on - I've never found a caterpillar on anything but persea and sassafras. I've recently planted a native American spicebush, but my spicebush swallowtails apparently don't know to use the plant they were named for - they think they're sassafras swallowtails! :) Sherry

Yes, it looks like LW. Contact me: jasons@ufl.edu and I will give you more detailed information. Laurel wilt is one my major foci of my research program and can bring you to speed on the most recent developments. Do you happen to know the cultivar? Cut into the sapwood and look for streaking. Do you see evidence of the ambrosia beetles yet?? (frass and small holes)

if you follow the farmer's almanac it's pretty easy to figure out what to do ... they've been keeping temperature records since 1945 -https://www.farmersalmanac.com/weather-history/ when i lived in tampa i knew it could freeze up until valentine's day and since moving to brooksville it’s mid-march. this is a normal winter from my fifty-four years of experience. The farmer’s almanac has been around since 1792 and you can check temps back to 1945. Below are the temps for Brooksville for the last eighteen years. I don’t see a trend either way … warmer or colder … don’t really see any climate change. Florida weather is notorious for extreme changes in temps in the winter. I was born and raised here and it’s always been like this. I don’t see anything in the last eighteen years that broke heat records, but in 2010 & 2011 it was in the mid-nineties. My grandfather and uncle taught me to use the almanac. They’ve been farmers in Tennessee for generations. There are plenty of citrus crossed with grapefruit that handle greening really well. I think they’ll just steer the industry towards those varieties and/or develop new ones. None of my grapefruits have greening and neither does my minneola tangelo, which I think is a tangerine grapefruit cross. Ag industries in Florida change with the times. March 8th 2017 – 62 2016 – 57.6 2015 - 55.9 2014 - 42.4 2013 – 32 2012 - 53.6 2011 - 46.4 2010 - 37.4 2009 - 54 2008 - 55.4 2007 - 51.1 2006 - 46.6 2005 - 48.9 2004 - 57 2003 - 62.1 2002 - 57.2 2001 - 30 2000 - 55.9 August 1st 2017 – 86.2 2016 – 89.2 2015 – 81.1 2014 – 86.9 2013 – 89.6 2012 – 87.8 2011 - 95 2010 – 96.9 2009 – 87.1 2008 – 83.3 2007 – 84.6 2006 – 90.1 2005 – 91.9 2004 - 91 2003 – 89.6 2002 – 89.1 2001 - 88 2000 - 91 ... or we could just blame it all on trump.

Bringing my old thread back up for an update on the tree and any opinions y'all might have about it. Last week i have noticed new leaves on the tree, not on the thin dead looking branches but where the branches are closer to the trunk and thick and barky. So the thing isn't dead. Is there something that would cause the branches of an vocado to die all at once? Once it become plain where this new grow is going to grow should the old dead stuff be trimmed all at once or slowly as to not shock the tree? I'm glad the neighbor is lazy and did not cut the tree down but i sure wish i knew what happened. My sister gifted me with a small avocado tree hopefully mine won't do what ever this one did.