Spirit of 76 is spirit of death.
The bark was spongy and I knew it was dying back. I used my utility knife to score and peel away the dead bark. The bottom is still alive but its only a glimmer of hope that it will pull through at this point.
What I've learned - Okay to prune a young tree if:
1. You leave it at least one leaf.
2. It's starting to pushing growth.
3. Or starting to push flowers.
Never, ever prune a young tree to a leafless stick right after it produces a flush of leaves. It uses up all its energy doing so and can't grow new leaves.
Never, ever prune a young tree to a leafless stick right after it produces a flush of leaves. It uses up all its energy doing so and can't grow new leaves.
I'm still hoping it will pull an Edward or Pickering and come back from the dead, but even those guys regenerated by two weeks time.
Irwin was a weird one. I had transplanted it and it was pushing flowers so I guess it had enough energy and recovered from transplant pretty quickly. It was a gamble that worked.
I'm going to wait till Maha Chanok and Southern Blush starts pushing growth before pruning them down.
