I agree mainegrower. It's extreme worrisome. At least the USDA cracked down on plant and seeds coming from China to the US via ebay. I don't think they currently have any authority over interstate sales there though. If there's any glimmer of hope, it's that many of those sellers are just reselling plants from wholesalers or nurseries that are certified SOD free. For example, strange and wonderful things, the ebayer who buys stuff from the plant sales in the Bay Area. Well, even though the Berkeley Botanic Garden isn't a certified shipper, the Cal. Dept of Agriculture still requires them to be tested for SOD...that's true of all nurseries in the state whether they ship outwith the state or not. There's just more scrutiny of nurseries that ship. Remember they don't want SOD spreading any further w/in the state...the feds don't want it spreading outside the state. So, 2 overlapping objectives there.

Gosh, where is Salicaceae, hairmetal, etc? Is this forum slowly dying? I think provided the USDA zone was suitable, yes the hardier one (probably. P. sinensis) would be able to grow in most of Texas. Summer heat appears to not be a problem. However, a lack of H2O molecules and possible H+ ions could be a big problem in the long run. They come from monsoon climate where each summer month has at least 6" of rain. But hey, over on the fruit forum there's a dude in west TX who adds sulfuric acid (and plenty of H2O at times, too) to his super-alkaline soil to grow blueberries. So, where there's a will there's a way! Might make more sense to to find something a little more drought tolerant though. Scotjute (sp?) a poster here might have recommendations. I bet some of the heat tolerant firs like Abies cephalonica would be a better choice for your area if you want that look. Make sure it is an own-root seedling, though. The Asian Pseudostuga make more sense around Houston, etc. NB based on my experience last winter even P. sinensis is not quite fully zn 7 hardy. Although I said above that it only had burning near the snowline, in fact, some of the branches on the top of the plant appeared partially killed because they didn't sprout normally. The Sequoia semprevirens were slightly more visibly damaged by the cold, BUT, recovered faster over the year. Could be their hexaploid powers at work! LOL. Here is a link that might be useful: This post was edited by davidrt28 on Wed, Dec 10, 14 at 15:01

Yes even here it's still an evolving situation. For example, I would now rank the damage on Ilex 'Scepter' as being more severe than that on 'Sand Pond'. Once again proving how a 100% American X American hybrid is more resistant to our capricious weather than an Asian X European one...as you'd expect. Because the leaves of 'Sand Pond' are obviously reviving themselves, but those of 'Scepter' continue to dessicate and turn papery brown. I wish I had a male I. integra, it would be cool to make a 'Sand Pond' X integra cross. (I should clarify versus what I said on Feb 23rd: some 'Scepter' leaves were still undamaged at that point. All 'Sand Pond' leaves had minor damage. Now, ALL 'Scepter' leaves are basically dead and some are already falling off. Most 'Sand Pond' leaves still have damage but the green bits are getting greener, it seems. The March 5 freeze was by far the most damaging of the winter) There's some rather odd damage now becoming apparent even on Abies ernestii...sometimes rated as hardy as 5b and I've seen a huge, beautiful one near Rochester, NY. (part of the reason I bought one) The leaves have little yellowish spots...I might post to the conifer forum to see if someone has seen anything like it. They are so subtle they might be impossible to photograph. It's like a very subtle variegation. Certainly not serious, but fascinating. All in all as they say, it still could have been worse. It also makes me feel good about my choice years ago not to invest in trying a big, expensive Trachycarpus palm. Because I thought north of about St. Michael's, MD or maybe Cape May, NJ - and even those locations are really really pushing it- they have no chance of being truly long term plants w/o protection. I knew another winter like 1994 would happen, and it did. What I did not know is we would have 2 in a row! I reiterate that 'Soquel' is my best looking Sequoia...granted it is my oldest but the bigger 'Swarthmore Hardy'/'Chapel Hill' has been in the ground a while, too, and arguably in a better spot. (better soil) Not that it is an appropriate rating, but I'm reminded of Dr. Dirr's former SEO website that rated 'Soquel' as zn 6 hardy. Not true but he apparently had some information about it surviving cold temperatures well, which it does. If you need to try one in the DC area, I'd now recommend that over any of the others. I want to try to see the huge tree in Silver Spring MD this spring, to see how it weathered things, and the 2 that are almost as big in NoVA. BTW - given that exposed Leylands were damaged even last winter in the outer suburbs of Baltimore, I definitely think most of New England would be stretching it for them.

Thanks buddy. We're fighting the good fight. Those folks in that old farmhouse-the one where I tried to get water, had to laugh at all my work and struggles, as I started my project right behind their property. In truth, to the casual observer, I'm sure my plantings look like a part of their property as the farmhouse they live in was a part of the very farm my field belonged to. Funny thing is, if we stand down at the base of that field and look back up-slope towards their house (and this is really a moderate slope) you can hardly see the house any more- a big old brick two and a half story farm house-what with all the larch and spruce taking over the view. Pretty amazing what a hard-working person or two can accomplish in a short time. That's why I get so tired of always hearing people talk about how "they'll never live to see a new tree grow" or words to that effect. I say, try it! you will be pleasantly surprised at how fast trees really do grow. Speaking of work, one year-this was in the early going where I'd plant maybe 250 trees a spring-I got the bright idea to pre-dig the holes in the fall. Well, I dug and dug and dug. that's when they were chuckling at my efforts. Then spring came along a bit too dry and all those little piles of soil next to the holes were rock-hard. I had no backfill material, without chopping and chopping up hard dirt piles. Talk about a good idea that didn't work! Never will I do that again. But I learned.. Evidently, there's enough clay and silt in that ground to stick tightly together. When we machine-planted that big bunch, we accidentally ended up with trees too close to our lane, so all of those will have to be moved, perhaps a couple hundred trees. So I'm thinking I'll scatter then wherever we want a tree or two and maybe give a few to that guy in the farmhouse, if he is willing to take down a lone box elder that is continuously seeding into my plantation. As it is, I'm going to have to go up there this fall or winter and do cut-stump[ treatments on all of those @#$%^& box elder saplings coming up in my trees. Darn junk. And that's all from one medium-sized mother tree. I can relate to the weeds. That first year, the one where all the annual weeds came in, it was almost all lesser ragweed..Well, "lesser" in this case was about six feet tall in all the rain that year, and when I'd drive my vehicle down the lane to get to where I like to park, clouds of pollen would erupt so thickly it was like driving in a snowstorm! Good thing I'm not allergy-prone! Unbelievable...just clouds of ragweed pollen. Glad that's mostly gone now, replaced by the Solidago (goldenrod) and asters, etc. I'm fine with that change. Hey look, I'm running away with this thread too! +oM