Sweetgum
Liquidambar styraciflua (American Sweetgum)
Forest/Grove

JANUARY 13, 2024. I fixed the problem with one tree floating above the soil line, and I bound two trunks to one another with  a loop of wire so that flattening the root ball didn’t make the trunk lean too far left. The right tree sticks out farther, but that’s going to be the long side of my triangle. I actually have two more seedlings in a grow pot, and some day they’ll be added beyond even that line. Maybe John will let me trade in this pot when I get around to that. AND — I had another good year for fall color. YAY!

John was here in the fall to work a tree for me (my newest pine), and he said the sweetgum group should be in the show this year. If I get good growth in the spring, and if it’s early enough to allow a defoliation before the show, I’ll do that.

APRIL 03, 2023. I just keep this one gong but rarely update my notes. I repotted this one a little drastically a week or so ago. I sort of went “all out,” as I said last fall, but I still took a cautious approach. I bought a nice Chinese pot from John Walker, did a fairly drastic cut-back on the roots, and managed to separate two of the trees from the other three.  WoHoo! On top of that, the scheme seems to have worked. The bad news is that the composition hasn’t improved, and the back tree on the left is crazily floating above the soil line. Dammit.

October 29, 2022. I haven’t done much with this this year except trying to keep it alive and thriving. That might not be completely true, because I started to do a repot in the spring. On the whole, that wasn’t worth the trouble.I reduced some of the excess root growth, and I jiggled the placement of the tree to the left of tree No. 1. but it didn’t help the overall composition at all. I have to go full out or ditch the tree in 2023. Meanwhile, I’ve had the best fall color ever with this tree this year! It looked great last weekend., though the rain tonight will take care of that. Stay tuned.

July 14, 2021. Once again, I didn’t keep up with notes on this grouping. Short history: the number two tree died after potting in 2018; then number 7 tree died. Unfortunately that leaves a disgusting laterally symmetrical planting that just about has to be changed. Surprisingly, the tree made the move to the new yard OK. I trimmed some growth back today, and I think with a little creative angling and maybe nudging a trunk left or right, the design can be made acceptable. After one more year in the square pot, if it lives long enough, I’ll get a slab for it in 2023.

March 11, 2020. Hmm. I haven’t made any photos of this grouping in far too long. I”ll have to remedy that this year.

But the good news is that I’ve restored the group (in a slightly modified configuration) to its former position in the large plastic rectangle. I decided the really angular shaped trunk worked better on the right of the No. 1 tree, and the tree with a decent bark looked better on the left. Time will tell if that was the right thing to do. I started off thinking I wouldn’t wash the roots, but I ended up cleaning things up a pretty good bit. I hope that works out OK too! The soil mix had a lot of the really small, shohin-sized akadama in it, along with lava rocks–not really small. I think I worked it in OK, but before a week is out I want to add two things. First I’m going to dust some potting soil on and drive it into the mix with a blast of water. After that has settled I’ll add a sphagnum moss layer, with moss mixed in it, on top of the whole thing. Even in the ground these trees showed some reaction to the hot weather last fall. I don’t want to risk that kind of damage now after all the work today. 😉

November 5, 2019. Wow. I’m more than a little late updating this page. In 2018 the No. 2 tree never did well and gave up the fight before June. Then the tree on the back right struggled and lost most of its branches. This year (February 2019) I decided the remaining trees (other than the No. 1 tree) were just too wimpy looking, so I put the whole shebang in the ground and added two trees. The two additions died over the summer, not a good sign at all. They’ll all go back in the plastic tray in the wooden frame, but I’ll probably wait until March to be sure they’re all going to be OK. And I might not even replace the two 2019 replacements. Five trees might be enough.

2018. February 28. Last month I built a wooden frame for the large flat plastic grow pot. I did that for two reasons, the first being to add a little stability to the pot. But I was also a little concerned that I might need something deeper. But when I actually potted the trees up this morning, that wasn’t a problem at all. I removed the smallest tree, the one that I added as an extra last year. Then I added two more trees: one volunteer from the garden and one from the bed just inside the driveway gate. Overall I’m happy with the placement of the seven trees, even though looking at the soil level they sort of outline a large oval. Now I just have to wait and see if they live this time. And assuming they do, think about how to get them a little closer together without losing anything. It’s too spread out at this point. [I’ll wait for leaves to put a picture here, but there’s a “right-after-potting” photo below.]

2017. July. I repotted the whole shebang in the spring, moving the trees out of the “permanent box” in the box bed and using another  one I had on hand, re-using a lot of old bonsai mix from deceased trees. This time I bare-rooted them and changed the placement. It’s better in some ways, but I clearly need a couple more trees. I did remove the “Lady’s Slipper” oversized root that was sticking out of the No. 1 tree. That’s an improvement, but I placed it with the raw cut facing front. Not good. And both No. 2 and No. 3 need to grow out a lot to thicken their trunk extensions. Sort of pitiful in that way. I just bought a 24×18 training pot with plenty of wire holes. Next year I’ll use that and see how things go.

May 30, 2016

2016. I  dug the trees up and planted them as a new group in the front box of my “box bed,” where I hoped to grow things out anyway. I added another tree from the same area, one that I had cut back in 2015. Its new leader had grown at an angle and I thought it would be a good addition as Tree No. 2. Digging that one wasn’t very successful, and the tree died before the end of April. I also had put the No. 3 tree in the back, the No. 4 tree next to No. 1. The composition was wonky, but I kept it that way just to keep from killing even more of the trees. I removed the No. 2 carcass, and this is what the group looked like at the end of May.

I started this out early on, maybe in 2012, when I just cut back one of those ubiquitous sweetgum seedlings that crop up all over our yard. Gradually I got the idea to make a group planting, and in 2014 I stuck five of them in close proximity in the back of a flower bed. They grew fast, and I did a little trimming and cutting back when I could. The first one — already growing in that spot, was a year or two older than the others, and the group didn’t look half bad.

Photos