forget about replacing the tree and GET RID OF THE IVY. Do you think just maybe it is competing for nutrients & moisture? English Ivy is AKA Urban Kudzu. Show us the pic after you have cleaned it and we will talk.

where are you ...

why would you destroy an intact root mass ... because you dont want to prune out a dead branch??? ....

all trees releader ... in tree time ...

ken

why do you need matching trees ...

and i reality .. outside a disney movie... not many trees have single leaders ...

that form is forced on them.. in nurseries ...

ken

The tree in question looks like it was smaller than it's cohorts even if the top hadn't died. It also looks like in time the large tree (of heaven) on the far side of the fence will have an influence on the growth of your trees. If it were me the concern would be why the leader died in the first place. Unless the stewartias are named clones propagated from cuttings, there will be variation in growth habits among the three.

You noticed that too lol. Here it's an invasive, but nowhere the concern of Ailanthus. The next door property looks like a regular nightmare lol.

It was too small a spot for 3 Stewartias anyhow.

I stand by my prior assertion that Ivy is one of the more benign invasives we have. (east coast, not PNW) You want to be scared, drive the southern part of the NY State Thruway and see what Celastrus orbiculatus (or C. scandens X orbiculatus) is doing. 10X worse than ivy will ever be. There are vast swaths of many acres where the brush trees probably allowed to naturally grow back when the land was cleared have been completely destroyed by the stuff. Scary. Looks like something from a horror movie. Tangled around 6-8" trunks of dead red maple trees. Nothing else surviving besides the Celastrus.

Yes, Ivy invades urban "forests". Guess what, urban "forests" are by definition surrounded by and punctuated with breaks, they are not "natural" and are ALWAYS going to be invaded by some horrible twiner!!!!!!!!!!! ALWAYS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'd rather have a bit of ivy than a freakin jungle of native poison ivy and hypodermic-needled cat brier!

Didn't spot it in the picture but if there's Japanese Knotweed that is also much worse than ivy.

Kennswood, in my neck of the woods JK is the top invasive species bar none. Ailanthus rarely sets seed outside the London microclimate and is just another ornamental tree. There are a couple of nice ones in my local park:) whereas the JK cuts millions off property values and is surrounded by a set of laws akin to those applied to toxic waste,

Around here JK can't set seed but they spread like crazy by suckers. Often seen alongside roads, coming with the gravel material when they are building the road or maintaining it. Too bad it's so aggressiv, I like its look.

JK doesn't set seed here either. It's the roots which are the menace. And its ability to grow from any morsel.

Thanks to all for your comments!

sam_md - Interesting point about ivy! I am very new to all of this. The ivy is covering a fence but of course it spread out over the 3' bed. I wonder about pruning it back, off of the bed, and leaving just enough in the ground to support the growth on the fence. Of course ongoing pruning will be required - even I know it grows aggressively. Do you think that would still compromise the stewartias?

ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5 - Moments after the pics were taken I did cut off the dead branch but of course left it in the picture as evidence for you & others. I don't want to destroy the tree/roots. But, being ignorant and so unable to imagine the future of this tree, I'm trying to get a feel for whether in "tree time" it will become a harmonious companion to the other two - not a matching one! And, as I said, replacing it in say three more years when the others are perhaps 10' tall would be problematic given that access to the yard is through tight turns in a narrow corridor. But that one is a problem for a house renovation forum!

KennsWoods formerly kentrees - Indeed - it was "smaller than it's cohorts" right from the start (2014), and I appreciate your question about "why the leader died in the first place". For a couple of years we wondered if this tree wasn't doing well, or if, being smaller, it just looked that way. But then it died back.

floral_uk z.8/9 SW UK & all - I'm impressed that you spotted the Japanese Knotweed! It's small in the picture frame but of course it's a BIG PROBLEM! Years ago it overran my yard. A LOT of digging up roots, followed by putting a concrete patio over the worst part + fresh soil + landscape fabric + vigilant weeding + a 2 foot deep hard tile extension under ground of the wall between my yard and the one next door have it under control. For now....

It sounds like you have more aggressive and sensible laws about JK than we do. I'm concerned that here in the US we may move to de-regulate actual "toxic waste".

davidrt28 (zone 7) - you are observant, and exactly right - the yard next door is a nightmare! I'm now committing to monthly raids "over the fence" to try to control the JK problem.

davidrt28 (zone 7) - Interesting point about the tight spacing of the trees. We were guided by a designer. What did we know?

We need to know where you are jroshima. This website - owned by various companies since the late 1990s - has done all the long-term contributors a huge disservice by not making "n00bs" with questions post their general location and if necessary, USDA zone.

But anyone who has seen truly mature, full-sized Stewartias at gardens in SE PA, the PNW, various other parts of the country would know that at the very least, you would one day be having to trim competing branches. In other words it could possibly be done - Longwood or Quarryhill could probably pull off putting 3 small-to-medium sized trees this close together, if they were for some reason so inclined - but for the average homeowner, this is a bad idea. The landscape architecture field, especially in the US, if rife with people who are either too ignorant, or too greedy, to know to consider such issues. (in some circumstances, "landscape architects" are making a markup on the plants themselves, thus are incentivized to over plant) At worse, you'd be dealing with having to one day remove one, two, or even three of them, depending upon how they deal with the stress of being crowded.

That being said, this is a curious photograph, there's some unrecognizable about the architecture to me, and I cannot fully grasp the scale we are dealing with. Are these attached/terraced houses? EDIT: I had forgotten to click to magnify. Now that I see it enlarged, I definitely stand by my assertion. This was a 1 Stewartia edge of a city lot LOL. Not even Longwood would try to squish 3 trees of that size so close together.

One of our posters posted just the trunk of one in Delaware. http://forums2.gardenweb.com/discussions/1641737/japanese-stewartia-tree

You can see they don't stay at the dainty size of yours forever! Some species are somewhat slower growing and might stay as small as 25 ft., but I don't think that's the case here.

I am in Brooklyn, NYC., so the conditions aren't much different than where you are. But I didn't mention that the trees are set in a 3 foot deep by about 14 foot wide bed that's contained by cinder block on three sides. The fourth (14') side has a patio on top of it comprising a gravel bed and a cap of concrete. Maybe in time the growth of the trees will be constrained by the contained space and they won't interfere with each other as much as you're imagining. Who / What is the dreaded Longwood?

And thanks for the stewartia post reference. Helpful. I wonder if we didn't water enough at first (planted 2014) and that was when the troubled one was wounded.

jroshima, keep up the good fight against the weeds. It seems that you are working under some difficult conditions. HERE is a thread on another forum about Japanese Knotweed. Scroll down for the most interesting posts (mine :) JK can be eradicated without digging. Cut the stems and paint over with 41% glyphosate, stay on top of it, repeat it and it will die.

The first thing I notice is that you are trying to use open-growing deciduous trees to block an unwanted view. So for months at a time you will be able to see right through them. Also because the species used is a bark interest tree that effect will be lost to the fact that the trunks are going to be seen against an ugly backdrop - I definitely would have planted evergreen trees (or shrubs) to hide that shed instead.

Doubtless the "Japanese" Knot-weed being talked about here isn't setting seed because it is actually Hybrid Japanese Knot-weed (Polygonum x bohemicum), which for some reason usually produces male flowers only. And is often more prevalent than P. cuspidatum.

The Japanese Knotweed I am talking about from my experience in the UK is usually Fallopia japonica (Polygonum cuspidatum). From my reading it rarely sets seed and when it does it reported not to be viable in the wild. We also have F sachalinensis and the hybrid x bohemicum. F sachalinensis occasionally produces seed, apparently, although I've never seen seedlings.

In Seattle

the present writer has found only one seed-bearing hybrid clump, but all purebred Japanese knot-weed clones noted locally make copious seeds

--A.L. Jacobson, Wild Plants of Greater Seattle (2008)

and one of the authors of the combination Polygonum x bohemicum (Chrtek & Chrtlova) Zika & Jacobson 2006.

I am always battling japanese knotweed. It seeds here, otherwise it wouldn't pop up in the middle of my lawn.

Appearing in the lawn is not evidence of seeding. JK will spread by underground rhizomes over a wide area. The roots can go down and out many, many feet.

That is interesting, Embo. I am just reporting my reading and experience over here. The RHS advice specifically says it doesn't set seeds.RHS advice

What a great video from ncwildflower.org. Even the most jaded poster will have to chuckle at 3:00

Because 3:00 is the (mostly unfunny) segment where Ivy was mentioned, was the point to say it is an invasive? Of course, it is. I didn't say it wasn't. I said it was one of our more benign ones, and sooner or later the 'ecologists' or whatever they call themselves...will probably realize certain benign invasives are better than the alternative. Who cares if the hell median of an urban or suburban highway lacks biodiversity? There is ABSOLUTELY NO WAY such a plot of land is going to remain a pristine swath of pre-Columbian forest, without constant human intervention. The people who have spent time fighting ivy are going to regret they ever worried about it when the Celastrus orbiculatus takes over.

But we will see...I'll come back to this thread in 30 years and we will see if ivy is still something people worry about on the east coast.

David, while I agree with your main point, the ivy will attempt to choke out the stewartia and anything else planted in this bed. The ivy needs to go. While english ivy is invasive, it is also a nuisance plant. You know that I'm no ecologist!

I am just reporting my reading and experience over here. The RHS advice specifically says it doesn't set seeds. RHS advice

Other treatments you have seen aside notice RHS page linked to here says nothing about the hybrid and appears to show giant knot-weed in the first picture and probably Hybrid Japanese Knot-weed in the second. Also describing the leaves as "shovel-shaped" sounds to me like they are not differentiating the Hybrid Japanese from the pure Japanese.

Some time ago I read other web pages produced by a different UK source that as I remember it said the majority of plants there were the hybrid - same as here. I retained that aspect specifically because of it being a duplication of local circumstances in a different region across the globe. The discussion had distribution maps and the like, was clearly a serious production.

Retained plantings of any alien plants that seed out will forever be sources of re-infestation of nearby lands. Pigeons and starlings eating the fruits of Hedera hibernica - the main problem ivy here in the Seattle area - and constantly spreading it around, for instance. And there are plenty of tough decorative plants suitable for use in challenging situations that are not ecologically invasive or significant nuisances in other ways.

"the ivy will attempt to choke out the stewartia and anything else planted in this bed"

It's incredibly easy to cut away from a trunk. It grows an order of magnitude slower than things like kudzu or Celastrus.

At any rate, I am NOT recommending ivy for every garden situation, I'm not even recommending people plant it. I'm just saying it isn't nearly as objectionable as a host of other invasives in urban landscapes of the east coast.

"And there are plenty of tough decorative plants suitable for use in
challenging situations that are not ecologically invasive or significant
nuisances in other ways."

From my observations (again, local, not in the PNW) ivy has an almost unique ability to suppress growth of other weed species while not harming already existing trees and shrubs, provided it is cut away from their trunk every other year or so. No other ground cover can do that without, itself, being a massive pest. But, there's really no point in arguing this anymore. If the kind souls who think they are being environmental good samaritans by removing ivy would rather spend the rest of their lives instead hand-pulling Rubus, Smilax, Rosa multiflora and Toxicodendron - they are most certainly welcome to do so LOL.

A good time to post a link to Stephen Jay Gould's intellectually rigorous investigation of the topic: http://arnoldia.arboretum.harvard.edu/pdf/articles/483.pdf