Bad Tree Batches

So, I have had a disappointing spring when it comes to tree planting. None, not one of my 25 bareroot hackberries has leafed out and they appear to be dead. 100% mortality. These are now expensive sticks in the ground. The same for 25 bareroot honeylocusts and 10 hardy figs.  The hackberries came from the Colorado Forestry Service (CFS), the honeylocusts came from Burnt Ridge Nursery, and the hardy figs from Home Depot. Each tree was given 2.5 gallons of water mixed with compost tea,  and mycorrhizae inoculant, a handful of polymer gel, 4 inches of mulch, and a tree sleeve. Each was planted in a 24 hour time frame from being received.

So, now an autopsy of why they died. First, the factors that I ruled out.  #1 the species is not suited for the location. I rule that out because my hackberries from Cold Stream Farm have survived from last year and are doing well. Meanwhile, honeylocusts from CFS have leafed out 100%. #2 bad placement. I put the trees in a variety of dry and wet places, shady and sunny, behind a wind break and without a wind break. There are different soil conditions in each place. #3 not enough beginning soil moisture. If that were true then none of my spring tree plants would have survived, and so far I have leafing out: pea shrubs, new mexico locust, false indigo, chokecherry, currants, and plums. Some of these dead trees are along drip irrigation lines and still refused to live.

So, unless you all can think of another confounding factor, I have to say that these were just bad batches of plants that were improperly handled or harvested from the ground. Has anyone else had the "bad batch" syndrome? Does anyone know why it happens?

Hi Skyler.  Our honey locusts are just starting to bud out.  Our figs are still dormant.  Last year our figs didn't show anything until the second week of June.  We have had maples and chestnuts that waited until June too.

That's good to hear. I'll keep watching for them.

I bought a batch of Korean pine a couple of years ago, just a dozen or so. I was convinced for the first year that they had sent me a different pine because the foliage was so yellow. Otherwise the trees looked healthy enough. I didn't expect much growth in the first year or so anyway. The nursery sent some fertiliser pellets, I wish they'd sent some root fungi instead, but put the fertiliser on anyway. Eventually the foliage turned darker green and I lost only one of the trees in two years.


Golden Korean pine on planting.

I have noticed a difference of several weeks in the leafing out and blossoming of my bought in rowans compared to the local provenance ones. The bought in ones come into leaf much earlier than local ones. This maybe to miss the drying winds we often get in April and early May. So you may see differences batch to batch even once the trees are established.

Fingers crossed yours are just taking a while to wake up!

The fact that the three batches of trees came from three different places makes me think it's a local problem and not bad batches, like maybe the weather is confusing the trees. We are having really weird weather this spring up here and my trees are acting confused too. My newest big trees are fine but a couple of my under 3' tall bareroot plants died from the shock of the weather going from warm to cold to freezing to warm and back to cold again.  Have you tried the scratch test to see if they are still alive but just still dormant?

An update to the bad batch. 3 of 25 hack berries finally started leafing out at the end of June. None of the honey locusts from Burnt Ridge Nursery have lived and the scratch test confirmed they are dead. For the hackberries, I'll grant that conditions may not have been ideal, but the honey locusts look to be a bad batch.

I don't know what the weather did this spring in your location, but yesterday I had a chat with a well respected local plant seller. He does a huge number of grafts every spring to sell locally. He said his graft success rate is normally 95% but this spring, he had only 30% success with plants that were sitting in his outdoor nursery, but 100% success with the plants that were in his greenhouse.

I can understand how disappointed you must feel, and I'd certainly want to contact the sellers to see what might have gone wrong, but if the problem was Mother Nature, we need to find a way to give her a helping hand. In Gord's case, he said that our weather was simply sooo... atypically cool, that the graft cells didn't multiply fast enough (hence the reason the greenhouse grafts made it -  just that bit warmer). Hopefully, you can identify possible issues and if you can't come up with solutions to those issues on your own, maybe post some more info and we'll see if any permies members can help.