Interesting...looks like a Dasylirion in your photos

Yes it does, The full size needles length is what is very nice to me on this dwarf broom selection. This will be a shorter and compact longleaf pine tree that has long needles. It should be cold hardy to around zone 5a or 5b (being from the northern range).

Until I see a healthy Loblolly or Shortleaf Pine growing in zone 5b, I'm going to remain very skeptical of a Longleaf Pine achieving that feat.

Ya know, treeguy, I'd be willing to trial one for you should you need a northern clime. Purely for testing purposes, you understand.

tj

Great name, and looks wonderful.

Good luck with it.

Thanks everyone.

Smivies, poster "beng" from western Maryland in zone 6 is growing 'Montane' ecotype longleaf that was sourced from northern Alabama. This is the same natural ecotype where I discovered this broom. He said his 'Montane' ecotype longleaf pines went through a zone 5 type winter (last winter), and they only had some light freeze damage to the lower old needles, but that is it. Also in this part of the natural range where I found the broom, the trees easily lived through temperatures below -15ðF during the 1980s very cold winters. There are a few that over 80 years old in this part of the range that have been through past ice storms and wet heavy snows and they look fine now days.
I have a FL sourced Longleaf pine that had snow damage and yellowing of the leaves after this past winter when we got down to 0F, and it also had a broken branch from the heavy wet snow.
But the native northern ecotypes looked perfectly dark green and healthy after this past winter with no limb breakage I could see.

This post was edited by treeguy123 on Tue, Dec 23, 14 at 20:14

@treeguy123. Good to know but my NE end of Lake Ontario 5b is not as forgiving as a western MD zone 5 winter. Cold duration here doesn't let the evergreens rehydrate near as often as it would further south.

Yeah, I bet it would be a more tough test toward central U.S., it would be interesting to see how a mature 'Montane' ecotype Longleaf could handle winters there.

I take winterburn and bud-death as symptoms of cold damage, and mine haven't shown this since they were young. Wet snow and ice are the real concerns. That said, the longleafs haven't gone thru a 76-77 winter, which was the coldest Jan of the century in some z6 spots and froze the ground to 4' or more. So, they might not be fully z6 hardy in the long run. Still, worth the effort:

Nice picture beng. Your tree looks much better than some around here like the one at U Del, that has been knocked over by snow a couple times. It's actually quite pathetic looking. I'll take a picture next time I've over there.

Mine get bent badly by wet snow, but the wood has rather remarkable elasticity -- recovers back straight even in the middle of the winter after a week or so. But eventually a storm will prb'ly bust them up.

I noticed the guy (Lovett) with an experimental planting in Missouri also had his longleafs beaten up badly by ice-storms. Search the site below:

Edit: Here's an image -- http://www.lovettpinetum.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/DSCN1859.JPG

Here is a link that might be useful: Lovett pinetum

This post was edited by beng on Wed, Dec 31, 14 at 8:41

Treeguy, how is your Little Chief Longleaf doing??? This is way cool that you did this. What was your goal in doing the graft? Did you do the graft to limit the height somehow? I wouldn't mind being able to graft one onto some kind of dwarf rootstock.

My longleaf is 4 years old, 6' tall, and just starting to come out of the grass stage - it has divided into two leaders on the top. I live in Fairfax County Va, zone 7a. I haven't had any winter damage to the plant.

I put the tree in a kind of insane place, the front yard of my suburban lot, not too far from the sidewalk. I knew it when I did it that it wasn't the best place for it, but I wanted to show it off, ha ha. Now it's going to shoot up high. I just love it as an ornamental though, and am pondering doing heading cuts to keep it small. I've done this with a loblolly and it has worked out fine, the thing looks good.

Yeah yeah yeah, I know, plant a tree that fits the height you want, so you don't have to prune it. Well there aren't any dwarf cultivars and I want a little longleaf. :-)