Korean Hornbeam - help needed

[coh]

I was hoping to get some advice on this Korean Hornbeam. I acquired it in June 2011 as sort of a "rescue" tree. A local club member was downsizing his collection and was practically giving this somewhat neglected tree away. So, being new and not having enough projects, I had to take it off his hands. It had a nice rugged trunk with good bark and lots of lichen. Branches were somewhat leggy and neglected.

Tree had obviously not been repotted for a while and I was advised to do so immediately. My intuition told me to leave it alone until the next spring, but I went ahead and repotted it. Next time I will go with my gut...I must have been a little too aggressive with the roots because several branches proceeded to die off, mostly on the left side of the tree (as seen from the "front" view). Tree was weak the rest of the summer and didn't set many buds in the fall. Therefore, I left the tree alone for all of last year to recover. It didn't grow strongly but did produce a good crop of buds last fall. Unfortunately they are mostly out near the ends of the upper branches...lower branches have buds but definitely look weaker.

So I have two issues - (1) get the tree as healthy as possible, and (2) how to style/develop from this point. I'm not sure whether/how much to prune back the top this spring. If I just leave it alone it will get even leggier. Have received advice to let the first growth flush harden and then prune, while others have suggested pruning now (buds are beginning to swell). Am also wondering if it would be wise to slip the root mass into a larger (wider) pot to try to strengthen the tree.

Looking forward to opinions. For size reference, the trunk base (above the root flare) is a little over 2" in the first photo, and the height above the soil is 20-22".

Thanks in advance,

Chris

Original front view - widest/best nebari:


Right side view:


Back view:


Left side view:

 

[coh]

Couple of additional photos of the trunk, from the front and right side. Not as clear as I hoped. I can provide additional photos if that would be helpful, just let me know.

Chris

 

[Poink88]

Chris,

My first KH is exactly the same. Mine was pot bound w/ dead branches and most fine roots are dead. I went for broke and took it out and planted on a training pot, trimmed it, and it responded very well this spring...I actually gave it a haircut already! (yes we are earlier)

One thing I noticed with your tree...you have a "whorl" at the middle, better reduce the branches there when your tree is healthy enough. They also form a cross right now.

On pic #1, the bottom left branch that looks dead need to go (it need to go either way anyways IMHO so no loss there).

BTW, when I trimmed mine, the bud size are like yours and they formed new buds near the tips of my cuts. Seems like it is very apically dominant.

Here is pic of mine taken a week ago.
View attachment 33440

Good luck!

 

[jk_lewis]

Moving it with NO disturbance to the rootball into a wider and slightly deeper, pot would be good for it. Thats with the roots winding around the rootball and only SLIGHTLY loosened. Worry about them next year. The new roots should end up encouraging new top.

These trees tend to be a bit apically dominant when grown in pots, which is odd because in the woods they get a rounded top and wide "wingspan." I usually snip all the end buds on my Korean hornbeam, but I do it earlier in the spring (or later in the winter); it may be too late this year.

I wouldn't even think about "styling" until you start getting a thick canopy. Feed the dickens out of it -- full strength, per the label, weekly, Miracle Grow all summer, and you might add 10-20 cc of trace elements to every other feeding. Good nurseries sell those in pint bottles. The box stores will have never heard of the stuff.

Let it grow however it will this summer. In the fall, before leaf drop, cut back to a couple of leaves per branch and branchlet, feed it again, then nurse it through the winter (I didn't notice where you were from). In January, look for the first signs of buds and snip off the end buds. That should -- assuming a healthy tree by then -- promote latent buds to swell lower on the branches. If you don't have many buds, repeat the cycle 'till you do.

Good luck.

 

[coh]

Thanks to both of you for your responses and suggestions.

Jim, your approach makes a lot of sense and is pretty much what I did last year...and was planning this year. My only concern is that not trimming back the top at all may lead to further weakening of the lower branches, which I do not want to lose.

Chris

 

[MrFancyPlants]

It looks like the tree is putting out a fair amount of new growth although not necessarily in the areas that you want. I would be tempted to rub off all of the buds from the top portion of the tree that wouldn't possibly play a role in the final design. Ideally I would have done it a month or more ago before the tree had devoted as much energy to them, but it is not to late. Then depending on how the tree responds when it leafs out you could also trim off the tips of the buds from the top portion of the tree to further disrupt the auxin flow to promote more growth further down.

This is general advice coming from a rookie with no experience with Korean Hornbeam, but I find "nipping it in the bud" is a good way to redirect growth while minimally impacting the health of the tree.

Thanks,
David

 

[JudyB]

I would get this healthy this summer. What JKL said... It won't kill lower branching to bring it back to health before you do any cutting/pruning/styling to it. Leaves feed roots, roots feed tree.....

 

[coh]

David and Judy,

Thanks for your thoughts. I'm probably going to leave the tree pretty much alone for this season, maybe a little trimming back of over-zealous branches at the top. May slip pot...will evaluate tomorrow.

Chris

 

[coh]

update April 30 with questions

Now that spring has arrived, I've found out that many of the buds on this hornbeam are actually flower buds, as you can see in these photos:



I'm not sure whether to interpret this as a good sign or a bad sign (i.e. tree "thinks" it's dying and is making a last ditch effort to reproduce). You can see that the leaf buds are generally way out at the ends of the branches, with little interior budding - especially on the lower branches. For reference - when I got the tree in June 2011, it had a few flowers left (maybe 5), and last year did not produce any at all.

I slip-potted this to a slightly larger pot earlier in the spring and was planning on just letting it grow this season. Is there any benefit to removing some/many/all of the flowers? Curious as to how people would handle this tree with this new information. Thanks for any help.

Chris

 

[coh]

Figured I'd update this thread since I was taking photos recently. As noted previously, the tree produced a tremendous number of male flowers which I left alone. Then it proceeded to leaf out. Most of the growth came at the ends of existing branches; there was little "back budding". So the tree is getting leggier. On the plus side, the leaves are very healthy, a nice deep green (despite the somewhat yellowish appearance in the photos), with no evidence of fungus, burn, etc. It has also produced many female flowers and seed pods which can be seen in these photos.

Plan is to leave it alone for the rest of the summer as suggested earlier by Jim, unless anyone feels differently after seeing these photos. I'm probably going to snip off most of the seed pods since there's no reason to let the tree waste any more energy on those.

 

[Martin Sweeney]

"Plan is to leave it alone for the rest of the summer as suggested earlier by Jim, unless anyone feels differently after seeing these photos. I'm probably going to snip off most of the seed pods since there's no reason to let the tree waste any more energy on those."

Coh,

This seems like a good plan of action after seeing the photos. I would remove all of them.

Regards,
Martin

 

[coh]

Update on this tree. I've been working on invigorating the growth and cutting back, slooowly. The tree has responded and is decidedly more vigorous than when I started the thread. Still quite a ways to go in terms of bring the growth back toward the trunk, and also in controlling the apex. But I have wanted to go slow with this since it's a pretty old tree with a lot of character in the trunk and primary branches.

Just repotted this spring, I turned the tree 90 deg (which required considerable root work, so fingers crossed) so the current front is what was initially the right side (photo 2 in the original post). I don't know if this is a permanent solution, but I like the structure of the tree from this angle even though the impact of the base is reduced. One of our club members has a korean hornbeam that has many structural similarities to this one and he has done a more drastic styling (I have a pic somewhere, will post if I can find it), creating a slanting style. That would require removing branches that I'm not ready to remove at this point.

 

[LanceMac10]

Great job bringing it along to a healthy state! You were not kidding, look at that crown!! Plenty of fat budding!
Maybe cut some of the top back to finer branching a little lower on some of the bigger stuff?
Love the bark and the trunk is really developing some great character.
Love the early spring leaves' hue as well!!!
Great little tree!

 

[coh]

Great job bringing it along to a healthy state! You were not kidding, look at that crown!! Plenty of fat budding!
Maybe cut some of the top back to finer branching a little lower on some of the bigger stuff?
Love the bark and the trunk is really developing some great character.
Love the early spring leaves' hue as well!!!
Great little tree!

It's a gradual process, I'm still feeling my way with this. As it is an older tree, I don't want to go too fast, especially with how weak it was and now with all the root work I did this spring.

Leaves are not out yet, what you see is a combination of flower buds (the larger/fatter ones) and regular leaf buds. Soon, though!

 

[BunjaeKorea]

Great job. Here in Korea the Hornbeams have all leafed out fully. They tend to sacrifice branches easily. Heres one thats come a long way in to years. Shohin 20cm

 

[LeonardB]

Great job bringing it along to a healthy state! You were not kidding, look at that crown!! Plenty of fat budding!
Maybe cut some of the top back to finer branching a little lower on some of the bigger stuff?
Love the bark and the trunk is really developing some great character.
Love the early spring leaves' hue as well!!!
Great little tree!

Question about thinning the crown. Will removing that material reroute energy back down to the weaker lower branches?

 

[LanceMac10]

Some, but probably not as much as you would like. Trees do want to grow tall, after all. At least the lower branches will get a little more light.
On @coh tree, look how many more vegetative buds in the crown compared to lower branches.....

 

[coh]

Interesting to see this thread pop up. My tree is still more vigorous in the apex...I've kept the lower branches alive and maybe strengthened them a bit, but still working on it. I've been cutting the top back more than the lower branches, which helps redistribute the vigor. But the problem is, the lower branches get longer and leggier. At some point I'm going to have to cut them back harder and hope for the best.

BTW, it turns out that a lot of those fat juicy buds are flower buds. Tree has been a prolific bloomer the last few years.

 

[JudyB]

I routinely cut back mine very hard in sections, it only seems to make it stronger.

 

[coh]

I routinely cut back mine very hard in sections, it only seems to make it stronger.

What time of year? Before spring push, after first flush, etc. Have you noticed different responses depending on timing?