"Many of my older plantings are completely vulnerable. I took cuttings, soaked them in water to rehydrate, and planted them in a pot in the ground to see if I can root them." I mentioned this once elsewhere, but will mention it again as it goes contrary to what one would think and might be a vluable lesson to someone else... The same thing happened to me over the winter, Rosefolly, Falstaf starting dying back and, not knowing any better, I thought it might be winter damage...until it dawned on me that dieback was continuing as it warmed up! Touched it and the whole bush came up in my hand! !#$%!#$% What to do? Well, procrastination is always the first thing on my list, so I cut all the dead branches off and put the base in in a bucket with enough water to cover most of the crown. Now, bear in mind, the crown was about 4-5" wide and there was but *one* stringy little root, the rest was chiseled off. Seque to about a month later when I got serious about cutting shoots off for starts (what's the hurry when the branches were still green, eh?). Sooo, I cut off all I thought that I could start and pulled the base out to toss it. Low and behold, the chiseled bottom of the crown was sporting a handful of little white roots about 3-4" long. Good thing! I put it in the ground and it is making a come back while all my shoots got black and died.

John, I have to say that I am a bit concerned with that much water being that close. The Acer saccharum rootstock will not like 'wet feet' at all. My concern is that the water does not drain away just under the surface. So while the flow may never make it to the root ball, it may very well saturate the ground 3-4 inches down and remains that way for days longer. That would not be a good circumstance for a Sugar Maple, and one that is just planted with reduced root mass it could be much worse. Now everything depends on how ell it drains. I have clay, and it would be VERY bad. But your soil may drain much better and not be a problem. It just depends on the soil. The fact that you have a Eastern Red Cedar nearby being hit by the same flow, supports that the soil will drain quickly, but only you can answer that for sure. Couple of things you can do is raise the rootball 5-6 inches, but that would require replanting. Also you could go out to the lowest point of the swale (the low spot in the channel) and dig a small trench say 3-4 inches wide and 6-10 inches deep. Ideal being is you provide a lower concentrated channel so that the excess water can drain away more quickly after the rain stops. Kinda like a 'French Drain' but with no cover over the top. A narrow channel such as that is easily ignored and would help drain the excess away more quickly. JMHO. BTW, neglected to say the holes on the one tree look like what I got on our Fall Fiesta after last winter. Small area of bark damage probable from sun crack/scald. Should heal up quick and not cause problems. Arktrees

Unless you go big or do something else, it will take several years before there is shade. I did some research on SHADE SAILS, which are professionally installed sculpted high-tension UV durable fabric covers that come with nice variety of poles or ground supports. It could even solve a shade problem as part of your driveway, and allow you to ACTUALLY GROW HOSTA ON YOUR DRIVEWAY. (I throw that in to pacify KEN)..... INstead of that, I've accumulated several patio umbrellas, which are moveable and fit with my pots. In your case, I think the real McCoy is required. It will not be cheap to get a top-notch one, but it can be taken down in offseason, although I cannot say what it requires to do that. Just look it up. You might be very pleased to use this as your redbuds etc grow to full glory. There are several similar products to the one listed below, which is the original top of the line product I think coming from Australia where they are dealing with a rip in the ozone layer, so compare to this product and go from there. They are really beautiful things. Here is a link that might be useful: Shadesails.com

This elm was at least 90 years old and had appeared healthy till about 3 years ago when it just seemed to have fewer leaves. Last year mid summer some of the branches lost nearly all their leaves. This year it leafed out sparsley only to loose them all within a few weeks. The size of the tree with it's spreading branches looming over the heavily traveled road was a danger we couldn't ignore. I had hoped to leave about 25 feet of trunk standing for the woodpeckers to enjoy, but was advised against that when the rotting inside the trunk was apparent to the tree man. This rotting was caused in part by the way the tree was left to grow with two (or split) trunks. The cavity was full of water. The last picture shows how the trunk split open when it came down, so it could have been a hazard in high wind. This Elm had managed to escape Dutch Elm Disease completely. A tree will be planted to replace the it. Probably a Tulip Poplar. We won't live long enough to see it actually "replace" the beautiful Elm.