Mine grow about a foot a year, but they are still small - largest is about 5-6' and in the shade.

I'd concentrate on survival period, at this point. I applaud your decision to use both this excellent species and for starting with very small plants. That's exactly what I do in some of my "native restoration" work and it's def. the way to go. I can't tell you much beyond this however as our use of this species in these types of situations is still too recent to even see much growth. Just plan on slow. That's no lie. BTW, I've seen it in print that Am beech is the single most difficult species to work with, and I believe it. Oaks are a walk in the park compared to beech. The latter truly does need perfect drainage, but in a soil that's never too dry, the perfect filtered sunlight/shade mixture, and no soil compaction at all. Great trees but finicky.

+oM

Where did you get them? I tried to plant several American Beech last year and none took.

I ordered them from Cold Stream Farms in Michigan. I have ordered trees from them many times in the past and had great results. My desire is to have a towering grove of smooth, grey-barked American Beech. The problem is, as I am learning, I will be 137 years old before I achieve that. : (

bingo .. lol ...

you have to buy the property with intact trees... to live the dream you have ...

transplanted trees in your size ... for the most part ... take 2 to 4 years... to grow the root mass.. needed to get going on that annual growth rate ...

too many variables to list ... fert will not speed it up ... and is not needed.. if you have any kind of decent soil ...

then all of a sudden.. come year 5 .. you will realize.. you are looking up.. to see the annual growth ....

i have a purple copper beech ... bought at about 6 feet .. i will guess 16 years later ... its 20 to 25 feet tall ... so it seems.. the annual growth is well within that mentioned above.. after a year or 3 to get 'established' after planting ....

part of our problem../ in SE MI ... is the number of dormant months with frozen soil .... they are not what i would call fast growing ... as compared to warmer zones ... with longer growing seasons ...

two things to do ... protect so they dont get stepped on under snow cover ... and protect from deer.. if they are a problem in your area ... nut trees seem to be a favorite snack.. and at your size... there is not much leeway ... on taking the whole top off ...

ken

Thank you, all. Good counsel if even it is 'bad news' for my little beech utopia plans.

Not to get off topic, but another really cool American Beech alternative for sites that don't have great soil is the American Hornbeam (AKA, Blue Beech / Musclewood, etc.) I transplanted one from a family members property a few years back thinking I had a baby beech tree and it turned out otherwise. By far my favorite fall color! And at maturity the bark is very interesting.

Here are some fall pics.....

(Note: they do hang on to some of their leaves throughout the winter)

Beautiful pics! Do you have a source for one? (I notice you have a Spartan symbol so if your family member lives in Michigan and has any others, I live in Michigan too ; )

Thanks! The color on this one is really unique because it seems to change from orange to red and there are other colors in there as well.

My wife has always wanted a beech tree and there are a few at her parents property in Bitely, MI so we thought we were bringing a tiny one home to Lansing, MI several years ago. It took a few years before I caught on that it wasn't a beech tree and the fall color was a pretty significant give away. If I had others I would happily offer them to you, but I'm not sure where we located it. It was in the woods pretty deep. It is located in full sun now, but did great in the shade (where I had it located a few years ago). A bit if caution, the deer and rabbit's enjoy them, so keep that in mind, but even when they got to it, it seemed to grow back as the season went on. I'm slowly trying to prune it into a single stemmed tree over a few years.

I found this website if you want to experiment with some really cheap bareroot hornbeams :) I have no experience using them but they appear to be the cheapest and sell direct.

There are some cultivators known for there fall color attributes, etc. But I think they are usually hard to locate at a reasonable price.

http://jlpnliners.com/plant-catalog/view/american-hornbeam

Good luck!

Thank yo longtee!

I am pretty sure the european beech grows faster and is more tolerable of soil conditions.....the american beech is part of the climax community in its natural habitat. It can survive for decades in the shade of larger trees until those tree die out. Then it quickly grows to fill in the gap. I cored a beech that was about 40 feet tall and found it was 220 years old....that was just a small one too.

I am pretty sure the european beech grows faster and is more tolerable
of soil conditions.....the american beech is part of the climax
community in its natural habitat. It can survive for decades in the
shade of larger trees until those tree die out. Then it quickly grows to
fill in the gap. I cored a beech that was about 40 feet tall and found
it was 220 years old....that was just a small one too.

Yes, it grows about twice as fast and seem to be happy in all kind of soils, even those that are nutrient poor. But it differs quite a lot from the american beech in many ways and can't really be considered a fair replacement. Besides, it doesn't handle the american east coast heat and humidity very well.

I second the 1 ft per year growth. Mine is about 10 years in ground and roundabouts 10 -15 ft tall. I dug it up from the local woods here in fall when it was about 3 ft tall. They say to transplant Beech in spring, but, I was not patient enough to wait. I have it in full sun. I got lucky and it is doing great, but so small compared to the other trees I planted back in 2005. It is strange also in that the top branches kinda fold over on each other instead of reach out like other trees. Well, when they are in shade they reach out ward to catch the sunbeams between the overstory, and are open canopied. Full sun they have so many branches and leaves all close to each other. It will be shaded alot soon enough. I would prefer the shaded open canopy growth habit really. Poaky1

I really wish that when I went to the UK in 2001 that I was into trees as much as now. I did get a pic of a Q. Ilex at Cardiff castle Wales, but I really could've seen lots more trees if I had made it a priority. My best friend and I went to see as many Castles as we could, trees weren't a priority. I guess we would've needed more time there to see castles and trees. We went to a park, Cucumber park. We walked around, saw some perennials, Bluebelles. Saw many trees, but, they weren't quite the obsession that trees are now to me. I also have heard that Eur. Beech is a faster grower. I will say that sometimes trees vary in vigor, (but the Am Beech will be slow) but if you start various trees from seed sometimes out of a handful of the same tree species seeds, you will get a few with more gusto than the others. I know, that's only helpful if you can get a handful of seeds of the tree you want. I will say that if I could go back to England and have a few days to see anything I wanted to, I would go and see the woods at Windsor castle. That's where the 1,000 + year old Q. Robur and maybe some Sessile oaks are. They are called Dodders. I have a book that has pics of them, but that just isn't good enough. I would just love to see some of them. I know that Live oaks Q. Virginiana get huge, maybe even more huge than an old Q. Robur, but, I have yet to see a 1,000 year old oak of any variety, (not sure if species is the correct word) I will guess that a 1,000 year old Virginiana or Robur will be quite huge. There just seem to be more Virginianas that are huge and intact still foliated. I also have seen that ancient Q. Roburs have a large trunk and large spread, but the Q. Virginiana do seem to have a branch spread that is wider than the Q. Robur. If I am wronge though, I would love some input from anyone with more info. I have read that lots of ancient Q. Robur were coppiced alot for use by people for firewood or poles for various things. I am not sure if that helped the tree live longer or taxed the tree more. later Poaky1

I am always amazed when I go down towards Ohio and Tennessee... they
have such beautiful trees. I know the Pac Northwest is supposed to be
the bees knees of forests, but eastern mesic hardwood forests are my
FAVORITE by far! I can only imagine how cool England must be.

The forests of England are beautiful but they are not very large, it's a very densely populated country. Also, there are not many species of tree. The Białowieża Forest in Poland should be the best in Europe, or the mountains of the Balkans and northern Turkey. But to be honest I don't think any of that compare to the Appalachians.

Has anybody tried growing American beech in Europe?

Thanks for your info Huggorm. I still would love to see some of the ancient oaks in Windsor park though. Poaky1

David, forget the criticism from this crowd. Yours is a great idea. I am doing something similar with copper beech (which is fagus sylvatica). I also have fagus grandifolia and it is doing fine despite everybody told me it would never do well here in the prairie. If you want a faster beech, try fagus sylvatica. If established it can easily put out 2-3' in a year. It has (in my opinion) much better foliage, but the bark is quite a bit darker than the american counterpart. It is easy to find as 3-4' seedlings and they establish quickly. Let me know if you want a source for them. Best of luck and thanks for planting this wonderful and neglected species.

I have one that I planted back around 2009 from a one gal container, and it's now about 10' tall.

Beech trees are extremely rare around these parts, but they seem to love water in their native habitats. I know of one native stand of them on some bluffs above Mobile Bay, and they always grow alongside Southern Magnolia, Bigleaf Magnolia, and Swamp Chestnut Oak. I go every fall looking for seeds, but I never find any.

There are a lot of young American Beech in the older wooded areas around where live, but VERY few mature specimens. The older "inner suburb" neighborhoods have a lot of beautiful old European Beech.

here is the largest fagus grandifolia in my town, easily 60' tall, in prairie 5a