5yr Native Tree Challenge - Dingus's rhus aromatica (Fragrant Sumac)

[LittleDingus]

We had an opossum that would get into the dog food in our garage, scared the crap out of me. We also had a raccoon get into our attic via an unused chimney, that was fun... But only the squirrels bother my trees, and usually only in the fall. I have had alot of oak seedlings pop up in my pots this winter.

We once had a bat sneak its way into our bedroom. I was upstairs getting changed when I startled it into flight around the bedroom. Stupidly (we'll get to that part) I calmly left the room and closed the door thinking to trap it in that room. The look on my wife's face when I told her there was a bat in our bedroom!

Now why shutting it in the room was stupid: I took my eyes off it! After putting on my heavy coat and grabbing a big towel to try and trap it under, I went back up and carefully snuck back into the room. And it was gone!!! Now what do you do? You can't sleep in a room that you know has a bat in it! And it's quite impressive what the little buggers can manage to hide in! I spent over an hour looking everywhere I could think of. Inside everything, behind everything else...under things.

We slept in the guest room that night.

I waited until dusk the next night. I figured that's when they became active so I hoped to find it then. I figured if I didn't, then it was the long process of starting to remove things one-by-one from the room...and hope that I didn't move it with them!...until I found it! Luckily, after about 20 minutes, I found it. We have a vaulted ceiling with some recessed lighting that it was hiding in. I had looked there the night before because I was pretty sure that's where I would hide were I a bat...but hadn't seen it.

The poor thing was so dehydrated it could barely move...but I caught it...and turned it over to animal control.

 

[Carol 83]

We slept in the guest room that night.

No doubt, lol! We had a bird get in through the open flue of our chimney once. I locked it in the room until my husband got home and caught it with a fishing net! Sorry for mucking up your thread, I'll shut up now.

 

[LittleDingus]

No doubt, lol! We had a bird get in through the open flue of our chimney once. I locked it in the room until my husband got home and caught it with a fishing net! Sorry for mucking up your thread, I'll shut up now.

It's all good! No worries

 

[Lost2301]

We had an opossum that would get into the dog food in our garage, scared the crap out of me. We also had a raccoon get into our attic via an unused chimney, that was fun... But only the squirrels bother my trees, and usually only in the fall. I have had alot of oak seedlings pop up in my pots this winter.

Squirrels did heavy damage to my trees/plants in 2019, 2020 was very different most of them moved out of the neighborhood and left my stuff alone. I had one tree attacked by a Robin, not to bad, much better then the squirrels. Me neighbor feeds the squirrels. I have a new problem now. Pigeons are flocking to my backyard. Maybe around 15 of them. Its always something!

 

[Lost2301]

We had an opossum that would get into the dog food in our garage, scared the crap out of me. We also had a raccoon get into our attic via an unused chimney, that was fun... But only the squirrels bother my trees, and usually only in the fall. I have had alot of oak seedlings pop up in my pots this winter.

I had a squirrel come in the 2nd floor window just as I got there! I don't know who was more surprised. The squirrel ran across the window sill knocking stuff off and climbed up the curtain, then across the curtain but not before going number two and then down the other side of the curtain and back out the window. All in all not to bad, thank god the cat was not sleeping right next to the window opening.

 

[LittleDingus]

Both of these guys are waking up now...finally!



They survived my fall hack-n-slash to split them into two separate trees!

Being an understory tree, I would expect them to try and leaf out before the canopy closes up. There's an invasive Asian bush honeysuckle that is almost fully leafed out already...long before the canopy closes up. That's probably why they do so well here...

These guys, however, are fashionably late to the party. They also tend to be one of the first to leave in the fall. They tend to go red and even lose most of their foliage before most other trees even start to change color...

 

[LittleDingus]

I was able to cut two of these guys out of the same nursery can last fall. They're both showing signs of blooming and budding out so it looks like they are both going to survive my late year abuse

I've been trying to reduce the footprint my collection currently takes since I have some I'm still trying to grow out and each year they get bigger!

Since I have 2 of these, I thought I'd take the one I like less and hack it back and try and get it into a pot so I can 1) reclaim some space, 2) start to learn more about how these guys grow in smaller containers, and 3) push some boundaries and entertain myself a little

The one I chose to work with is this one:



I do not know how/if these guys back bud. I cut back conservatively to keep a live bud or two on each branch tip this go around. We'll see how it responds.



I did cut off all the flowers on this one.

Last fall I made a large cut under the soil line to separate a branch from this trunk into a second tree that I hope will be a semi-cascade. That cut looks to be callousing.



The roots are really unbalanced around the base of the tree from that cut. I really should leave this guy in a larger grow out container for a year or two to try and get some roots back around the entire trunk. It wouldn't hurt to thicken it a bit more either. But, I had a @sorce "extra" that he sent along with one of my orders that was looking sad and lonely like it wanted a friend.



The pot is too small for how big this tree is likely to end up I'd love to reduce the tree again by half but there aren't many active buds that far back and I'm not sure if it would pop new buds or just invest in new suckers. Plus the leaves are compound and are a little coarse for a tree that small. If the tree survives and shows good growth, I might make some more severe chops next time. If it lives, I'll probably have to find a different pot too This one has globs of teal glaze that I think would compliment the red fall colors well...but the tree is a little top heavy for it.

 

[LittleDingus]

Both trees are doing quite well.

The upright one that I potted in a tiny pot to make sure I could keep it alive in one has leafed out nicely



I've grown to like the structure quite a bit. I'd like to get more interior buds to fill it out more. I'm still not sure how far back these can be safely pruned to get back buds. The tree is still recovering from being shoved into a tiny pot so I'm not going to try and find out just yet. I might prune tips to encourage branching but I don't intend to cut back any further this year. Maybe next spring though.

I had pruned the flowers off the first tree to get it down to a more manageable size to shove in a tiny pot. The flowers were left on tree number 2 though. They're nothin special but if you zoom in, you should be able to find them.



My goal for this one at this point is a cascade of some sort. I'd like to try and develop a waterfall of red in the fall. I've moved it from a spot where it was flat on the ground to a spot where the branches start to arch out into space. If I get time some in the next couple of weeks, I might start to bend some shape into the thicker branches. The profile in the picture looks horrid The view from above is pleasant enough for zero effort though

 

[LittleDingus]

I did a little poking and prodding at the upright version today.



These guys are fun to work on! As long as the work it light, they have a pleasant spicy scent Unlike when I first separated them and could see oily patches on the drain water. The scent then was heavy and almost pungent...though still not entirely unpleasant. Today was just a bit of bud nipping though...the scent was not at all overpowering and was, in fact, a bit refreshing!

But yeah, today I decided to go from this



to this



on most of the growth tips in the hopes of pushing some budding back. We'll see. There are a few new buds scattered back towards the trunk, but I'd like more. My fear, though, is that I'll get new buds off the new growth instead and end up with dense tufts at the ends of long branches

I might end up chopping back to try and force more buds back near the trunk. My fear with too big a cutback is that it will choose to sucker instead. We'll see how it responds to loosing most of it's growth tips. If it buds again near the top, then maybe next spring I chop back much harder.

While working on this guy, I also took the time to mix up some shredded sphagnum and ground up moss clumps. I spread the mixture over the base off the tree. I should have done this a month ago when it was damper and more conducive to growing moss, but I only had a few moss clumps left from my last harvest so I just went ahead and used them up on this and a few other trees. We'll see what grows...or doesn't...

 

[HorseloverFat]

Looking good, Dingus!

Once you start, um “chasing back” the foliage to create your points of taper, BEWARE!...

I’ve found that OTHER Sumacs will sprout 2-3 from nearby nodes.. but NORMALLY only keep ONE.. they are “geared” towards mass devastation of surrounding competitors (primarily from below).. they DON’T really care what’s going on ABOVE that “soil mirror”

 

[LittleDingus]

Looking good, Dingus!

Once you start, um “chasing back” the foliage to create your points of taper, BEWARE!...

I’ve found that OTHER Sumacs will sprout 2-3 from nearby nodes.. but NORMALLY only keep ONE.. they are “geared” towards mass devastation of surrounding competitors (primarily from below).. they DON’T really care what’s going on ABOVE that “soil mirror”

I know it!

There's a lot about aromatica I find strange. They are often found as an understory species here. I see them all the time when walking in the woods. They grow about 2' tall with little to no branching...trunks no thicker than straw. This appears to be a case of "can" and not necessarily "want to" though. They "can" grow as understory trees...but they don't act like they "want to".

A fairly common trait of understory trees is to "open early" or "stay late" or sometimes both. They try and catch as much time without a canopy shading them out as they can. Aromatica seems to open late and close early! Probably why they're short little pieces of straw when growing under a canopy!

These guys do act like colonizers though. They can grow very dense mats of roots. They are sold in nurseries around here as "erosion control". This area is part of the foothills of the Ozarks. My house is built into a steep enough hill that I have a walk out 10' tall basement! I don't know of anyone who uses these for landscaping to stop erosion on a hill, but that's how they are marketed!

The "grow low" variety I have is supposed to have a growth habit that spreads low and wide. Claim is 2' tall x 8' wide. Where they touch...they root...extend the perimeter! I'm really interested in the intended cascade because of this trait BUT, I do worry that they aren't afraid to lose a battle (branch) to win the war (suckers!)

5 years to learn and develop a new-to-you species is NOT a lot of time! Heck 5 years to develop an I've-done-this-a-dozen-times species is not a lot of time in this game

 

[LittleDingus]

Looking good, Dingus!

Once you start, um “chasing back” the foliage to create your points of taper, BEWARE!...

I’ve found that OTHER Sumacs will sprout 2-3 from nearby nodes.. but NORMALLY only keep ONE.. they are “geared” towards mass devastation of surrounding competitors (primarily from below).. they DON’T really care what’s going on ABOVE that “soil mirror”

I forgot to ask: you had a staghorn in this competition, correct? How it is faring these days?

 

[HorseloverFat]

I forgot to ask: you had a staghorn in this competition, correct? How it is faring these days?

I do NOT have a stag in the competition.. i had two neat ones (not in the competition, that wasn’t me. ).. well.. ONE was neat.. one was... a stick from my first year collection.. BOTH, however were “winter lunch” for a, I’m assuming, rabbit.. but
I never knew anything to eat sumac... even working them makes my Nose/earskin swell if i’m not careful... so to INGEST it seems like a bad idea.

@liquid_back_draft has a little stag I gave him last year.. maybe he’ll share a picture of it.. i grew it from root-cutting.

 

[LittleDingus]

And the smell of the day is: musty laundry?!?

These guys are odd to work on...they have an aroma. Today, that aroma was not so pleasant

I broke the initial plant I bought into two. Today, I spent some time with the one I've been thinking to turn into a cascade.



I haven't touched this one since it was first potted after the initial split. So first order of business was to remove all the dead twigs. Like these



What I was envisioning for this tree was a waterfall of lava in the fall. The nebari came with a strong hint at the trunk coming out along the soil surface.



I figured if I could bend the branches down and spread them out a little, I could make something that looks like lava spilling over a caldron when the leaves turn red in the fall. Yeah, I know...I've got an over-throttled imagination sometimes

But, I have this cool @sorce pot that I love!



that really needs something planted in it! The current options I'm considering are this amur maple



or this cascade rhus.

My thinking if I use it for the rhus was to have the cascade fall over the flutes. So I laid the pot on top to see how close they line up.



They don't line up so well. I could probably bend them into place, but some of the angles might look a little unnatural were I to do so.

The flutes are also taller than the inner curves...which would make for an unnatural "waterfall". Water flows out the lowest point! So, how does the tree line up with the troughs?



Not so bad, actually! There is a branch or two that needed cut anyway due to crossing branches...with them gone, the troughs align very nicely

So I did some trimming and added some wire.



The wire job is pretty bad I wasn't going to wire, but I had some thick wire that I had just taken off another tree...so I wired it up to see what it might look like. The wire was too thick...but maybe not. The branched on these things bend like solid rubber. They don't splinter...but they have a ton of spring to them!

My big concern for making a cascade out of these guys is that, in spite of the growth habit of trailing around near the ground until they touch and root and expand, new growth seems to want to grow straight up? Both trees have branches that do this



One fear I have with the cascade is that I may have to stay on top of this guy now to make sure new growth doesn't double back like that. Alternatively, maybe I can let it double back some to fill in more?

Another fear I have with these is that the internodes are long. This pot may be too small to pull off the look I'm thinking I still want this one to be a cascade, but I might have to let it be a much larger cascade than this particular pot would allow.

Eh...I'll let it grow for a while now and see what the tree decides to do. Worst case, I let the branches spring back some to make a larger cascade.

As a side note...and I neglected to take pictures...but the wild specimen in this area are fruiting now

 

[sorce]

Creative!

Sorce

 

[LittleDingus]

Creative!

Sorce

If my other hobbies are an indicator...my ambition significantly outpaces my skill

 

[sorce]

If my other hobbies are an indicator...my ambition significantly outpaces my skill

I reckon that's the right order.

Sorce

 

[HorseloverFat]

If my other hobbies are an indicator...my ambition significantly outpaces my skill

Just keep learning and trying.. EVENTUALLY your learning curves will “align”.

 

[LittleDingus]

Just keep learning and trying.. EVENTUALLY your learning curves will “align”.

Should they though? Align??

I hope not...at least I hope that my ambition always outpaces my skill! Otherwise, what is there to strive for

 

[HorseloverFat]

Should they though? Align??

I hope not...at least I hope that my ambition always outpaces my skill! Otherwise, what is there to strive for

True... ALWAYS something more to learn.. ALWAYS curving..

I mean more parallel.. like all your curves.. resembling each other.... aligning their “projections”