Sean’s Umes

[SeanS]

The much bigger white flowering Ume was up next. This one really took it out of me while getting it out of the ground
The base is 10” (25cm) from the widest point on the root base.

 

[SeanS]

Mid-spring update time.
All of my Ines have had a great start to the season in terms of growth. A few of them have however come out of winter with some dieback of fine branching. One in particular lost almost all of the fine branches that I’d built last season
The branches that were affected were all ones that had wired during winter. We experienced a week of cold weather (just above freezing) right after the tree was wired so I believe this may have been the cause.
I’ll post photos of the tree with dieback tomorrow (I forgot to take photos today)

All trees below had some yellowing and weakening of interior leaves and buds so it was definitely time to cut back and partially defoliate these trees.

 

[SeanS]

Pruned and partially defoliated another one of my Umes today.
I need to work on the stump at the top of the thicker trunk section, I haven’t touched it since the initial trunk chop 2 seasons ago. I need to bite the bullet and start creating some deadwood on my Umes

 

[Bonds Guy]

We experienced a week of cold weather (just above freezing) right after the tree was wired so I believe this may have been the cause.

Hmm I wonder if there was some frost in the soil. I have a theory that ume roots cannot tolerate frost unless very well insulated. I lost a few healthy saplings due to this (at least I think this was the reason). Those saplings were in pond baskets that were either on the bench or placed on the ground, buried in mulch.

Last year I placed a ume in the ground and it survived winter with no damage (Btw do you still have any mumes placed in the ground? How did they fare?). I put another one in the ground beginning of september but I'm a little worried it might not fully establish itself in the ground before winter. Its fate however will be interesting, because it will help me better understand how much time it needs to establish itself to get that ground insulation.

I rooted 2 cuttings from my ume that was planted in the ground last year and I will use those for my next experiment in which I wanna determine if the tree needs to be fully rooted (in ground) or just placed in the ground.