Fortunately, we only lost a couple of trees last summer due to the drought. Unfortunately, there were both relatively close to the house, so they really needed to be replaced. Amazingly, there were only two trees on our lot when we purchased it, now there are over two hundred! Call me crazy, I push mow around all of them before mowing with the big mower! I can’t believe how these trees have grown; we purchased about 150 Evergreens that were only 18 inches tall; many of them are over 10 fee tall now. Pretty cool!
We found a nice little nursery up in Frederick MD this weekend, The Dutch Plant Farm. We live far enough to the west, that we can actually go up to Frederick, out to Winchester, or over to West Virginia; the distance is about the same any direction we go! The staff was very helpful and the prices were more reasonable than some of the big Northern Virginia nurseries.
One of the trees we lost was a six year old Japanese Maple. We wanted to replace it with another one, but were a little worried about their hardiness and cost. Between the hot, humid summers, too much rain, not enough rain, and the crazy amount of wind we get in the winter, we have some pretty tough tree growing conditions! We ended up purchasing a different variety of Japanese Maple, one that was a little more tolerant of direct sunlight, a Red Dragon. I obviously need to do some mulching, but it is a really pretty tree. The other tree we lost was a Harry Lauder Walking Stick; it was several years old too, but never really did that well. We decided to replace it with a Raspberry Sundae Crapemyrtle. Living in the south, you see so many Crapemrytles, I think they are one of my favorites; especially when they start blooming. Hopefully, they will both survive the summer heat; I guess I will just have to keep up with my watering!
