15' is near the transplant-limit of most trees if you're a guy w/a shovel. Getting it to survive is gonna take several people, a truck & alot of effort.

A fellow worker & I successfully dug up a near 20' hemlock & transplanted into his yard. The root ball must've weighed 200 ibs even after shaking off most of the dirt.

my thought was that if micro climate is so challenging..

one might invest a lot of effort on a failure ...

where is SAM the monkeyboy.. isnt this the genesis of his GW name??? .. probably trying to figure out how to get it to the left coast... lol ....

it being somewhat hardy ... i wonder if its one worth grafting.. presuming you had some understock sitting around .....

ken

If you think it is worthy of saving, why not try to get ahold of the developer and see what their plans are. Explain to them the significance of the tree and that it is worth saving if they can work it into their plans. If this falls on deaf ears, move on up the ladder to county or city government officials to see if they can help by making the developer save the tree. Try getting the tree some publicity by contacting the local news media, etc. Bottom line is make the tree worth more by saving it than bulldozing it. Good luck.

Maybe enlist some volunteers- certainly worth trying. Possibly the horticulture dept at the nearest university or some such, students might be gung-ho at a project like this and they might have the muscle and drive to do it. Certainly it is worth a shot. It will be just lost anyway, might as well try.

University of Delaware has a big horticultural program. There are also a bunch of other former DuPont estates around there that are now gardens open to the public that might be worth trying. I fear that the microclimate issue is significant, however...

The other thought is to contact the Morris Arboretum at the University of Pennsylvania, but that is a bit north and probably zone 6.

Sara

Just remembered that UD even has a small botanical garden in Newark, DE. I seem to remember working greenhouses as well (not that this would fit in one, but speaks to the fact that it is actively managed - probably by students). You might try contacting them.

My parents lived in Newark for seven years, lest you think that this info is coming to me telepathically!

Sara

U Del. is indeed a good suggestion to contact. They could have a tree spade or know how to access one. (I don't really think the guy with a shovel approach is practical...particularly as, compared to any other tree, you really want to avoid contact with the crown!) They have a nice but small arboretum...it has a Cathaya! So they have a taste for rare conifers.
Also their climate has a markedly lower standard deviation of (growing season) rainfall; not that droughts are impossible there but when I compared many areas along the Baltimore to Philly corridor, it was one of the lower ones. They can catch storms on either the "coming up the western Bay" track, or the "following the Mason-Dixon line" track; my location just misses the latter track quite often. Might make a slight difference. Microclimate should be about the same as where it is now in terms of winter cold.

Ok, I've decided there's no harm is full disclosure at this point. I'm never going to reveal who my source was...turns out the nursery hasn't actually be sold, it's just that PSEG is rumored to be interested in the land, which is several hundred acres. They own the nuclear power plant a few miles up river so that would be completely logical. They might be looking for a place to put another one!

But the nursery IS going out of business:
http://www.maxanet.com/cgi-bin/mndetails.cgi?reimold6

I don't want to violate the owner's privacy, but I don't think I'm doing that in the case. The monkey puzzle is planted along the public street which is how my contact saw it; likewise, the fact they are closing is public knowledge if you google the address. I suppose they could be trying to take it with them, but that seems very unlikely. It's also unlikely that another owner will continue with the land as a nursery, since wholesale nurseries are going out of business left and right.
(the Dilworth Nursery in Oxford PA, had a nice collection of rare conifers that has totally vanished. It's just an open field now. I hope they were somehow auctioned or saved, but I doubt it)
I'm not going to pester any more public gardens, I doubt many of them would be interested. Still, it would be sad if this tree is just destroyed when it could be a specimen in a public garden. If you actually own a fantastically expensive tree spade, moving a tree this size isn't very hard. If someone wants to take up the cause, the collections manager at Udel's email address is available on this page:
http://ag.udel.edu/plsc/ourfaculty.php

{{gwi:804977}}

Here is a link that might be useful: http://www.maxanet.com/cgi-bin/mndetails.cgi?reimold6

NB that even though this is close to the Delaware river, the pine barrens of NJ are cold. I don't think the water helps you much until you are closer to Cape May, or at least on the south side of the Delaware. That is why the new USDA zone map calls that entire area 7a, even though there is 7b both to the west and east of it. I remember one winter Tripleoaks Nursery went below 0F, while the low at my place was 7F.

Sad that Longwood dismisses it so quickly & couches it in bureaucracy-speak like "plant collection policy".

Advice is cheap, but could check w/local FFA chapters or BoyScout troops for help, but they too are prb'ly handcuffed by our litigious culture nowadays.

This post was edited by beng on Mon, Sep 30, 13 at 12:19

I agree Beng. At least the zoos of the world all don't have a similar "animal collection policy" saying they can never rescue a rare animal from another institution or owner.

As a former zoo employee, many zoos do have that exact policy, and will only take animals from other AZA accredited facilities.

Well, I think we are all being a bit pedantic at this point but whether or not a plant has been institutionally cared for is pretty irrelevant compared to the case of an animal. That policy might make sense with animals, but it's hard to see why it makes sense for plants. It's probably mostly political, they don't want wealthy donors suggesting "oh, won't you please take my plants when I die, they are very rare or special". Except in this case, the plant is very rare and special, at least in a non-maritime climate. Like most institutional "policies" it's there for show, to be bent as required.

Besides one hears of such animal rescues fairly frequently, whether or not the organizations are AZA accredited. If some idiot in Texas buys some bengel tigers and can't care for them, they usually end up in a more advanced facility of some kind, where the point of ownership is a little less vanity and a little more preservation.* Even Texas isn't just going to shoot them and send them to a renderer. Of course most people can "relate" better to higher mammals, so its natural there's more concern for their welfare. And I'm not saying monkey puzzles are as threatened as tigers, though, they are far rarer on the east coast than tigers are anywhere.

* -although even some of these facilities are clearly poorly managed, like the one in California that recently allowed a naive female caretaker to be mauled to death by a big cat.

And of course, big zoo's policies have similar political particularities. By accepting animals only from other AZA facilities, they are underscoring that they do not approve of non-AZA facilities. Which is fine. But believe me if a pack of inbred thylacines is discovered to have survived with a family of Tasmanian immigrant hillbillies in Appalachia (now there's an alternate history...), the National Zoo et al. would happily overlook their so-called policy.

Right, Dave, that's the point. Not that many yrs ago a "gentleman's agreement" could cut thru the bureaucracy. Now everyone's so scared that some attention/litigation could result from any tiny indiscretion that such deals don't happen.

And of course there's a huge difference between a zoo animal and a tree -- the cost/risk of taking care of a tree after the transplant is insignificant.

This post was edited by beng on Thu, Oct 3, 13 at 11:07

davidrt28, how about an update on the forlorn MP tree. Your pic shows a respectable tree indeed, sorry the lower branches were removed.
I think that trees such as this should be looked at closely and considered for micropropagation. I think there may be some trait that allows these trees to survive our muggy summers.
This male tree is at Norfolk Zoological Park, Virginia's champion MP Tree, perfectly healthy.
FWIW, I visited Longwood Gardens earlier this year. They do have a recently planted MP Tree near the Chimes Tower, it can't be over 48" tall.
{{gwi:364538}}
Finally, the North American Rock Garden Society's Mason-Dixon chapter will present "Monkey Puzzle Tree, a story of survival" at the Norrisville Library, northern Harford County, Maryland. Date is 03/15/14 time is 1PM

That plant is incredible looking. Bristlecone pine is about as close as I can get to that look.

Any updates?

There is a mature monkey puzzle in Staten Island that is the height of the owner's 2nd floor roof. Another member posted it (211 Darlington 10312). It can be seen on Google Maps.

I just planted a 15 foot Monkey Puzzle which I planted in front of my house. I hope it will survive.

That's good. If there's a tree in the suburbs of Philly one on Staten Island is certainly plausible. The climate of the immediate coastal parts of NY state are fairly mild by east coast standards and I would expect a hardier clone of Monkey Puzzle to be fine with most winters. (The summers are an uncertainty as well, of course, but the further north you go the longer it takes the right strain of Phytophthora to find them and take them out.) However it's telling that no old specimens are known in the area. Maybe fine with most winters but not 77-78 which IIRC is one of the last times the LI Sound froze. (more so than in this winter)

I have no further updates on the southern NJ tree.

Oh my gosh.
NB that the link now goes to a totally different dead nursery auction in a different part of the state of NJ. That auctioneer is so thrifty they reuse their old URLS!

"Finally, the North American Rock Garden Society's Mason-Dixon chapter will present "Monkey Puzzle Tree, a story of survival""
That's a bit ironically titled. Surely a plant with one of the lowest success rates on the east coast, otherwise you'd see them all over. I seem to recall Mr. Hill of the old Hill's Camellia gardens told me he'd tried several and they were impossible in the climate of DC...he refused to believe there was one in Silver Spring and said it had to be a China Fir. (it isn't) They've been sold as specialities since at least the early 80s and yet you never see them in old gardens. Betty's Azalea Ranch in West Fairfax used to publish a big fancy catalog and they listed them for an ungodly sum for the era, I think $200, but I did see them at the nursery in that time frame when I was a kid. (mid 80s) I think they were also listed by the Foxborough Nursery in NE Maryland, which until they went wholesale only in the early 1990s was the country's ne plus ultra source of rare mail order conifers and things like boxwood. (The wholesale list now is a sad shadow of those days and from the vibe I get having seen the current generation of the family at plant sales, they just see horticultural as a business not a passion.) I have personally killed a couple small ones and I know of other collectors with similar experiences. Chile has probably never had a dewpoint above 65F in the whole country and it shows in the behavior of plants from there.

This post was edited by davidrt28 on Sat, May 24, 14 at 12:53

Remember that Jason had an araucana on angustifolia roots and it was doing well until an animal ate it. So dewpoint might not be all that much of factor, rather it might be the wet hot soil. Similar to A. firma and the other firs grafted to it. I'm always wondering about the climate in Japan with regard to Phytophthora, surely it must be everywhere even in cool places. Witness the P. ramorum in the NW and Europe.
Sciadopitys grows at low elevations but it seems everyone talks about hard it is to grow in the SE US. I think it must be the poor draining clay soil and not just Phytophthora per se. At least one nursery in the SE grows them and says it is a matter of drainage and shelter from hot sun. Surely it grows alongside A. firma, why would firma be resistant and not something like Sciadopitys?

"Surely it grows alongside A. firma, why would firma be resistant and not something like Sciadopitys?"

Not sure it does; if I recall rightly, it occurs further north and/or at higher altitudes.

Resin

Resin, conifers.org says it grows with
Abies homolepis, Chamaecyparis obtusa, Cryptomeria japonica, Pinus parviflora, Pinus densiflora, Pseudotsuga japonica, Sciadopitys verticillata, Torreya nucifera Tsuga sieboldii
is this incorrect? And yes at higher altitude but not vastly so and it seems to overlap. If this right why one is resistant and not the others? Of course it's all mountainous so good drainage, but rainfall is so heavy.

" So dewpoint might not be all that much of factor, rather it might be the wet hot soil."

I should have clarified I merely meant the twain were correlated. A climate that never has high dewpoints is never going to have hot wet soil. The correlation is not 100% of course. It's possible, for example, that the reason plants like traditional ironclad rhododendrons are purported to grow better in places like southern Japan versus most of the US SE (not my observation, someone else's) is that the cloudier conditions in summer mean that, in spite of the high dewpoints, the soil stays a little cooler. And also because the soil is volcanic in nature and more aerated than clay soil.
But yes it is the root rot organisms that cause _most_ problems with cool summer plants in hot summer climates. Not all though; I doubt you could grow Meconopsis X sheldonii south of Maine no matter how much antifungal you poured on them. They have a hard time in southern England, for cryin' out loud!

Right you are on the Meconopsis, I think if I ordered seed it would self-destruct before it got here! I think there might be new ironclad hybrids now with R. hyperthyrum, it seems to accept almost anything. It seems to be very cloudy in Japan in the summer, no doubt that keeps a lid on the temps. I wonder if the fact that I don't have clay is the reason the larix is still alive and seemingly doing well. I don't hold out hope long term of course, especially since I will begin overhead watering this year. If something dies then that's it, I'm not about to hand water forever. Interestingly, the Larix mastersiana planted this spring has grown 8in at least already. It's been hot but nothing like it will get in a month.

"Resin, conifers.org says it grows with
Abies homolepis, Chamaecyparis obtusa, Cryptomeria japonica, Pinus parviflora, Pinus densiflora, Pseudotsuga japonica, Sciadopitys verticillata, Torreya nucifera Tsuga sieboldii
is this incorrect? And yes at higher altitude but not vastly so and it seems to overlap. If this right why one is resistant and not the others? Of course it's all mountainous so good drainage, but rainfall is so heavy"

Need to know how detailed that data is. Suppose Abies firma is growing at say up to 500m on a particular mountain and Sciadopitys at 700m and higher on the same mountain, are they "growing together"? I'd think most documentation would say "yes". But that's not to say they don't overlap, either. And yes, drainage - and pH, etc. - will matter, as will also the strain(s) of Phytophthora at each location - maybe there's a particular strain of it that is lethal to Sciadopitys and present in the southeast USA but not [yet] present in Japan.

Resin

So Resin, is conifers.org not a good reference? It is ususally the baseline that I use, really it is the only reference that seems valid that I can understand readily. Apparently Sciadopitys can grow in some places in the SE US at least.

It's generally good, but only as good as its data sources.

Resin