Hi David,
I am glad you started this thread; your observations are exactly what I have experienced with my JM trees. It must have something to do with the sap freezing because my grapes, and crapes did the exact same thing...the tops died and new growth coming from the bottom trunk or roots. You know, when something freezes it expands so maybe the frozen sap expanded damaging the tree's vascular system??? I don't know the theory of being closer to the ground, because I have much smaller trees that died...and one large 8 foot, 15 yr tree too. My Emperor 1 has one new shoot, just above the graft, and looks smaller than one of those one year grafts bought on ebay; that is pitiful...and it was at least two feet tall if not taller.

My severely damaged list (some of these might eventually be added to the RIP list):

Ocopus
Red Feather
Baby Lace
Crimson Queen
Corallinum
Butterfly
Green Hornet
Jiro Shidare
Omuryama
Yezo nishiki
Red Dragon
Garnet
Mikawa Yatsubusa

RIP List:

Waterfall
Orangeola
One large 15 yr tree ??? type
Seriyu
Sunset
Irish Lace
Inabe Shidare
Stella Rosa
Azuma Muresaki

-Ivy

Here is a link that might be useful: App-A-Lot Ranch

Well, my aconitifolium with the injured bark is still hanging in there, and putting out new growth. Whether freeze damaged or mechanical (teeth or vegetable peeler) I remain guardedly optimistic.

melanie

By smaller trees I mean ones like dwarfs or young grafts within 12" of the ground ....

On the same thought the dissectums were hit the hardest and had the most overall death rate ...most were high grafted and the majority of those damaged and now dead still have live root stocks the tops are DOA...All the few low grafted ones are ok and any of those that had some of the trunk unaffected just above the graft are renewing ...

Oh I forgot to add before all of my older 10-18 ft trees are perfect totally releafed but a little more sparce than usual. And most all of my older smaller trees in the ground two or more years have also weathered the storm although some had die back of some of their tops ...

And BTW ALL except a couple made it handily through the winter and looked fab. before the freeze... So it is not a hardiness thing per say ( the two that died over the winter i don't think were winter kill but "david kill" trying to kill those cruudy mulberries too close to my JM's with herbicide. David

David--next time you need to kill something near a "good" specimin...try using a paintbrush dipped in herbicide, rather than spraying. I've done this with brushkiller on poison ivy...killed the PI and the rose was fine. Should work with roundup as well.

melanie

unfortunatly..the ONLY herbicide that will kill the dreadded mulberry is 24D (tordone)I have tried w/o success many things inclusding full strength round up I don't think a "safe" herbicide exists that will kill 'em dead!!! ,...I don't use spray I do paint it on after i cut it at ground level ...but the way tordone works is through the root sytstem ... anything touching those roots can be effected... I had tordoned the mulberries several months before planting the JM's and thought i dug out all of their roots to boot before I planted since I realized the danger ...guess I missed a few before i planted the Jm's nearby and KABOOOM.. If you spray or paint roundup it will kill the top but 10-15 new sprouts will come up and grow 6-8 feet in one season ...also the root sytem of the mulberry can get to 6 ft down wi/in maybe two seasons making digging virtually impossible..,. thats why I always say DON'T plant that tree the berries are spread by birds and it is almost impossible to get rid of them especially in areas around other stuff around with out effecting other stuff David

So I have a question about all of this. We had 2 that were badly damaged by the freeze, Crimson Queen & Tumukeyama. The main stem appears dead & brown but there is growth from the bottom. I've included a photo. What do you guys think? Will these babies live? They were in the ground & about 2 weeks after the freeze we potted them up. We have been keeping them in filtered sun & watering well. They have not been given any fertilizer. {{gwi:398292}}

Oh they will both make it but they are no longer either of those two cultivars although i can't really tell the one on the right... but it doesn't look dissected either ...both original cultivars are dissected ...you have generic green A.P. rootstock like many of the rest of us ...keep them or give them away they are not what you had before but YES they ...the root stock ...will make it ..David

Thanks David, I went to Parks today for the flower show & spoke with a horticulturalist there. He said the same thing. He said unless there was green 3" above the graft they would revert to the seedling. Now I have to go tell DH.