I F*@#ING hate elaeagnus...

[cbroad]

When they're not bonsai...

Had a 25' Leyland come down during our last snow storm because an elaeagnus had grown up it and choked it out... Both trees weren't even on my property, but they are now

Took the leaders off of 2 really nice 15' specimen j. maples; one atrolineare and an unknown green leaf with really nice orange and yellow fall color... Luckily it missed some of my over wintered trees by about 6'

Now I'm trying to prune around the maples to salvage them. This is not easy, I have a chainsaw and a gas polesaw but I can't even get in there and use them. What a pain...

 

[Cadillactaste]

Dang...could have been far worse. But a lot of cleanup work. Glad it missed most your trees. Sad they took the leaders off specimen trees in the lanscape though, that sucks.

 

[cbroad]

Spent about 6 hours clearing the Leyland off of one maple, I mostly had to use loppers and hand pruners...

Does anybody know if it's too late to take dormant hardwood cuttings of maples?

 

[Cadillactaste]

Spent about 6 hours clearing the Leyland off of one maple, I mostly had to use loppers and hand pruners...

Does anybody know if it's too late to take dormant hardwood cuttings of maples?

At this point...would it just be a good learning project if you have it there for the ready? But I get the not wanting to also waist more of your time.

 

[cbroad]

@Cadillactaste
Haha yeah at this point it isn't too much more work pruning a couple of the broken branches to try for some cuttings; the branches haven't dried out yet. I was planning on it anyways but wasn't sure if I missed the timing for them.

My thinking is once they're dormant, they're dormant and not sure what difference it would make taking hard wood cuttings in the fall versus now. Either way, fall or late winter, the plant is dormant and waiting for environmental cues to initiate growth. But I guess it depends on if the dormant buds get initiated by the roots or the environment... I don't know but I guess I'll find out!

 

[JudyB]

I had no idea that they grew vine like, thought they were shrubby things. Looks a lot like the grapevines we have here.

 

[cbroad]

no idea that they grew vine like

Ugh, they do ... I guess given the chance and age they'll climb. Luckily it was a pungens (or is the thornless type ebbingei, I don't remember?) because if it had thorns, those maples would've gone bye bye too; there was no way of doing what I did if there were thorns.

I should take a picture of the main trunks, these things are huge! I thought about digging it up for bonsai but there's no way this thing could be worked, and it's not even on my property (which the whole time I thought it was).

On the plus side though, I'll now have more light. Only one spot in my yard has full(ish) sun and that Leyland was blocking some of it.