water tupelo

[LeeB]

How much water does water tupelo have to have? Does it have to be flooded at times to do well? Lindy ordered 25 seedlings but I don't think they will do to well in the hills. How about beside a stream bed?

[pineywoods]

Lee I assume you are talking about what we call tupelo gum. They need lots of water, most around here are actually IN the water. About like cypress.

[ellmoe]

   Cypress and tupelo gum (black gum) both thrive in water, but will grow on drier sites. If your site is not excessively dry, they should grow fine. Water well until established though.

Mark

[LeeB]

That's good, because she bought 25 cypres seedlings also.

[Tom]

Water Tupelo (Nyssa Aquatica) and Black Gum (Nyssa Sylvatica)are two different trees.  I was asked by a carver, years ago, to get him some "Tupelo".   I got him the swollen bases of Black Gum from a "Head" on my property.   Neither he nor I knew that what he actually wanted was Water Tupelo.   Later, after his trying to carve little bird figures from the Black Gum, he decided that it wasn't what he was looking for.   I did a lot of studying on it afterwards so that I wouldn't make the same mistake again.  That is when I found that the Water Tupelo's base is the soft, grainless wood that he wanted and the Black Tupelo, was hard and used as pallet material or enterior beams.   Neither is particularly rot resistant, so they aren't used in general construction.

I was a bit saddened to learn the difference until my Old-Timer bowl turner told me that he loved Black Gum, especially the ones that had developed a black heart.

Both trees live in damp areas, though Black Gum can live on a hill.  I think that Water Tupelo is found, more often than not, in a submerged condition, growing in a flooded hammock or Head.   It's swollen base is prized by wood carvers for its softness and lack of grain.  It "carves like butter", they say, and is more available and economically friendly than other carving woods like Basswood.  Many of the old hand-carved duck decoys were made from water tupelo.

Unfortunately, I have still not found any water tupelo around here.

[Dodgy Loner]

Like baldcypress, water tupelo grows in naturally wet soils, but also like baldcypress, it will perform well in a moist (but not dry) soil on an upland site, as ellmoe already mentioned.  The important thing is to keep it watered while it's young, and control the competition.  Full sun to mostly sunny is best.  A little 10-10-10 (1 Tbsp per foot of height) will help them get going in the second year.  Apply it three times per growing season, in April, May, and July.  Best not to fertilize the first year while the seedlings adjust to the site.  There are some excellent specimens of water tupelo growing on the UGA campus in very non-flooded circumstances.

[LeeB]

Great news. Thanks guys. I'll have more questions about planting them whenever they come. She also bought 500 lobloly, 500 short leaf, 25 mulberry and 25 pecans. We got 140 acres and there is maybe an acre and a half that ain't already covered with trees. I really don't know what she was thinking. Guess she wanted something different. We got mostly oak and hickory.

[SwampDonkey]

Kind of like our northern white cedar. Yeah it grows in swamps in pure stands because it is long lived and can take spring flooding and water logged soil. Other species on these sites are not as long lived so they thin out of the stand leaving cedar, such as balsam poplar, red maple and black ash. Often you get black spruce and white pine, maybe hemlock scattered among the old growth cedar as these are long lived to. But put the cedar in some well drained soil and it will be much happier. Now going from wet soil to sand might be a little traumatic. A tree growing on those difficult sites is opportunistic where others will not survive, not a preferred situation for any tree.