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| October 31, 2014 This tupelo wants to be photographed |
They all get beautiful deep red fall color. The leaves in summer are a clean glossy green. Tupelos are very slow growers and late to leaf out in spring. They are stiffly branched, and not subject to bending at all in heavy snow.
In 2010 I replaced the dying linden in the front yard with a large specimen from Bartlett:
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| First planted, spring 2010 |
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| Fall 2010, gorgeous color. |
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| October 25, 2011 not as scarlet as the previous year, more orange red |
Black Gums like lots of water, in the wild they are swamp trees.
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| July 30, 2102, a nice shape and size now |
The tree in front had good color again in 2012, but it continues to be more orange than scarlet, this time very fiery orange.
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| October 22, 2012 |
In 2012 the tree in front developed curling leaves. Black gums are not susceptible to pests, and Bartlett had not seen this before. They took a specimen to the lab and it turned out to be tiny gall mites, Eriophyes. They sprayed for it and the tree is fine, but it was apparently quite unusual to see a black gum get this.
In front, we added another Nyssa sylvatica in 2013 to match the one planted in 2010 to frame the front of the house with matching trees. Bartlett planted it in late May and they put in a tree of similar caliper to the original.
The newest black gum in the front yard looked great in spring 2014
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| May 17, 2014 |
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| May 17, 2014 |
The little black gum by the bridge in back is becoming a stately tall tree.
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| June 5, 2014 |
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| October 26, 2014 |
The front yard black gums both turn orange in fall, not as red as the others in back. But very brilliant.
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| October 30, 2014 |
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| November 4, 2014 |
In late 2014 Bartlett pruned the top of the original front yard tree on the right which had developed some wayward competing leaders and was headed off in all directions.
This tree, unlike the other paired with it in the front yard, really wants to droop. Some black gums have a genetic tendency to grow in a contorted fashion. There are many cultivars that have been selected for this -- you can find several really twisty, contorted shapes in black gum trees. This one has that tendency. It wants to droop at the top and twist at the bottom.
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| 7/16/15 |
In summer 2015 Bartlett again trimmed off the topmost wayward branch to encourage that one straight leader at the top. We'll see if this continual pruning overcomes its contorted branching.
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| 10/10/15 |
The other black gum in the front yard on the left is quite straight-branched. While my other tupelos had red fall color, both front yard black gums lost their leaves in late October after a wind storm, and before they colored up at all.
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| 10/29/15 |
The black gum by the dry creek bed throughout 2015 was just the nicest tree:
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| Through the seasons in 2015 |
It is late to leaf out in spring, still quite bare as the middle of May approaches.
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| 5/6/15 |
Compare the growth of this little tree over five years:
