London Plane Tree Bloodgood - Planted May 2020

Back at the end of April, I went on an early morning socially-distant Home Depot run and bought a tree with some birthday money that reminded me of Paris.  Yeah..Paris.  Despite it being named the London Plane Tree.  It was a tall tree on a 50% off deal that I jumped at.  

This post shows the label for the tree that includes the name Platanus x acerfifolia.  I stared at this tree for a week as it sat on our patio before we finally planted it around mid-May.  It went in the ground a day or two BEFORE the super-late HARD frost that arrived and shocked everything (including our ferns).  

This London Plane tree had some tender leaves that were emerging from the buds on the tree when that frost arrived.  And...I think it got hit.  Or...some combination of the hard frost AND the transplant shock hit the tree hard.  All of the little leaves went brown and turned pretty limp.  They didn't dry out and were still pliable, but something was certainly wrong.  Here's what those leaves looked like a few days after the frost and about five days post planting:

Yikes!  I watered it heavily after that and hoped that it would recover.  As the weather warmed up, the tree seemed to respond.  And there is now some new, renewed growth on the tree with it leaf'ing out once again.

We planted it in the backyard on the northside of the fenceline about 2/3rds of the way back.  I pulled it away from the fence about five or six feet that you can see it in the photo below.

The *new* leaves that are emerging on the branches are green(ish) and have an almost felt-like texture to them.  The tree is coming (back) alive - as you can see below:

And here's a photo of the full tree with the new green growth.  Just scroll up a little bit and you can tell - even at this distance - the difference between the shocked (transplant + frost?) and where the tree is now.

I have a few more trees left that have already been purchased that I haven't shared on the blog.  I'll get to those soon.  But, this gets us to tree #49 planted since we moved in.

(For now...) 43 of those trees still alive.  49 trees over 4 years =  12.25 trees planted on average per year - up from 12 on last post.  This is the 14th tree of this season, so I'm right *above* the average right now, but (as I mentioned above) there are a few more trees to go in this season.

2017 (9 planted. 3 Died. 6 of the original annual total alive now):
1. Flowering Pear in backyard on north side.
2. Flowering Pear in front yard by garage. (LOST and replaced)
3. Japanese flowering cherry
4 and 5: 2 Lindens that I espalier'd and placed by the south fence line near our kitchen windows.
6. A Dawn Redwood from Earth Day 2017 (LOST and replaced)
7. Nat's Saucer Magnolia in our front yard
8. A Corkscrew Willow all the way in the back (LOST)
9. A Crimson King Norway Maple near the trampoline

2018 (17 planted. 2 Died and weren't replaced yet. 2 were replacement from 2017. 15 of the original annual total alive now):
10. Another flowering pear from Earth Day 2018
11. Red Maple Sun Valley tree from Earth Day 2018.
12. Weeping Cedar tree - our first evergreen.
13. The weeping flowering cherry tree that the Babe planted for Earth Day 2018.
14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21. These Frans Fontaine Hornbeams. 
22. A replacement Chanticleer Pear tree (3" caliper) out front by our garage
23. Our second evergreen - a short Fraser Fir Christmas Tree out by the trampoline. (LOST)
24. This Canadian Hemlock that is the first of nine that our landscape plan calls for in the backyard. (LOST)
25. Our replanted/replacement Dawn Redwood. Same spot as the first.
26. This teeny-tiny Bald Cypress that I planted in the front yard, in between our driveway and our neighbor to the north.

2019 (9 planted.  1 confirmed dead.  2 troubled. 8 of the annual still alive.):

27, 28, 29.  A set of three small Canadian Hemlock Trees in our far backyard. 

30, 31, 32.  This second set of three small Canadian Hemlocks along the north fence line.
33.  My new Weeping White Spruce that will only grow about 4' wide placed near the fence line alongside the espalier'd Lindens.
34.  A NEW Dwarf Alberta Spruce planted near the south fence line.  Our first "dwarf" tree.
35.  This new Hakuro Nishiki Willow (Dappled Willow) tree planted close to the flowering cherry on the southside.  

2020 (So Far) (14 planted and alive):

36.  A small Chanticleer flowering pear on Earth Day 2020 outside our screened porch.

37.  A very thin Lombardy Poplar tree - columnar form - in the way back wood chip area.
38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45.  These apple trees in a Belgian Fence espalier.
46.  A small Northern Red Oak tree - our first Oak tree planted.
47.  A 'decapitated' Lavender Twist Weeping Redbud that I planted on a whim.
48.  A replacement (from the nursery) Lavender Twist Redbud planted close to the brother.
49.  A tall(ish) London Plane tree that suffered some transplant and frost shock, but seemed to recover.