Any of the good nurseries should be able to supply this plant. Got mine years ago at Weston's or Mahoney's.

But if you want flowers in summer on it, it will need a lot of sun. Mine is in bright shade and part sun but produces few flowers. There is one I see in town in full sun and it is always covered with flowers in mid to late summer. The fall foliage on both, however, is beyond description. So red it almost hurts your eyes--gorgeous.

If you are near Framingham, I got a sourwood this year at Garden in the Woods. They specialize in natives.

I put my sourwood in full sun.

ALso I was told that they can sometimes be tricky to site correctly and get settled. Many folks seem to lose them the first year. I was told to plant in the spring as early as possible.

As far as size goes, fwiw, mine was about 3'T in a 2 gallon when I bought it. It has doubled in size this season.

They still had them at GITW when I was there last week. Dirr doesn't say anything about whether they prefer spring or fall planting, at least not in the Manual of Woody Landscape Plants, but I know some trees do have a strong preference, so that's worth checking.

Thanks so much for all of your suggestions! I'm going to investigate the Franklinia Altamaha, and see if I can find additional hort info on the Sourwood.

I will check out the various nurseries suggested here and will continue to check this thread. Cheers!

what zone are you in? Franklinia is borderline for Z5.

You may laugh, but I just saw today 3' tall Sourwood trees in 3G containers for $19.98 in our local HD. I don't know where they've been grown, but some leaves already started turning red.
Too bad I don't have full sun place for it :-(

I am looking for a small sourwood on its own roots--no grafts. Any suggestions? I've seen 2 grafts and some undesirable ratty-looking trees.

What the heck are they grafting them onto?

This is a pet peeve of mine, since I've had several failed grafts in my garden. I'd assume GITW is selling own-root plants, but I guess you'd need to ask them.

Nan,
Have you discovered why your grafted plants failed? Is it caused by the skill or lack there of, of the grafter? Could it be related to how deeply it was planted? I have had many dwarf conifers revert is this the same thing? kt

I'm not sure how conifers are dwarfed, are they grafted onto roots of smaller scale plants?

In the case of my witch hazel, it was the choice of rootstock, according to what I've read. One variety that is sometimes used tends to sucker, and another doesn't - I don't remember the specific varieties involved but as far as I know it wasn't anything that I did after planting. Last year I noticed a tiny spray of "regular" sweetgum leaves at the base of a L. rotundiloba, and it was no problem to remove them, but this summer I saw a shoot coming out of the ground about a foot from the trunk, with those now familiar species leaves. This probably means that I'll eventually be removing that tree, which is too bad because I like it a lot and have invested a few years into it.

I guess I just don't think grafting is a good idea because of the ever-present danger of the roots staging a revolt. Anything might set it off, seemingly. Some plants are grafted because it's the only way to get them to grow, but it seems like a lot are propagated this way because it's much faster than rooting cuttings. Given a choice, those are the ones I'd like to avoid. The problem is we're rarely given a choice, as most nurseries don't disclose which plants are grafted and which are growing on their own roots.

I recently read that it's advisable to dig up tree peonies after a few years and remove the original "nurse" roots they were grafted onto. I don't think I'll do it, but I'd love to see a demonstration of the process.

"I recently read that it's advisable to dig up tree peonies after a few years and remove the original "nurse" roots they were grafted onto."

I just did it.
It wasn't a completely voluntary choice because this year I noticed two herbaceous shoots coming from the base of 10+ years old TP and decided to act on it before it's too late.
As an end result I got 2 OWNROOT TP plants and a separate piece of herbaceous rootstock.
There is nothing special in a process that needed to be demonstrated because once you dig the whole 'thing' and wash the soil out rest will be the pretty much selfexplanatory. The only thing you need to remember is to plant TP deep, something like 7-8" below surface.

Re: grafts
Now, when all foliage fell off of my weeping Cornus kousa 'Elizabeth Lustgaarten', I see a lot of straight shoots coming from below the graft and suspect that I'll be facing serious uphill battle for a years ahead. General recomendation for such situations is not to cut those shoots cleanly, but rather try to reap them out. Much easier to say than do. :-((

I had a tree peony that was devoured by the vigorous but ugly wishy-washy pink herbaceous peony that was thr root stock. No matter how much I clipped and ripped, the herbaceous peony won in the end. Or lost, I guess, because I dug up the whole thing and threw it out.

Never thought of digging it up to remove the herbaceous roots. Will remember for the future.

I have a question about sourwood. I was looking to keep a colony of bee's this year for producing honey . I've read that sourwood produces the lightest and best tasting honey and was wondering what spiecies of sourwood grows well close to the new hampshire border and if that type of sourwood still produces light, and great tasting honey. thank you for your input

The answer is that there are no named cultivars available, at least as far as I've read. If and when one is introduced, it will probably be something grotesque like a weeping, dwarf, or variegated form.

As an aside, Oxydendron is the species, arboreum is the variety, and as far as I know that's the only variety of Oxydendron in existence, though I'm not sure of that.

As far as your location, since this tree is hardy to zone 5 you shouldn't have a problem with it, unless you're up in the mountains. According to Weston Nursery, "Native to the southeastern USA, best grown out of winter winds as an understory tree in this region." You might have the best results if you can locate one that was propagated locally in New England and not trucked in from Georgia, as far as hardiness goes.

Sorry, I don't know anything about honey.

Oxydendron is the genus. Arboreum is the species. There are no known cultivars (a.k.a. cultivated variety) of this tree that I'm aware of. This tree is also not grafted. The trunk can appear twisted but that is the natural appearance of the tree and not a graft.

This tree does not transplant well at all. You can find them around at most nurseries and at places like Home Depot and Lowes but you're really going to have to baby this one. It can only be planted in the spring because it is slow to recover from transplant shock and the root system is not very vigorous. The root system is also very shallow which means that this tree needs to be kept mulched. You might consider growing the tree from seed. That will eliminate your transplant problems.

BTW, conifers are not dwarfed. They are naturally small mutations of a species that are cloned for production.

Where can one find a Sourwood Tree?

Even if one has to order one, who is the best Nursery that has them?