I found a really neat Colorado native tree in the Groundcovers nursery in Denver, Colorado. It was in the native tree/shrub section. It said it was a single leaf Ash tree. They had several of them and I thought they looked kind of neat. The trees did indeed have 1 leaf not the usual compound leaves you normally see. I went home to research this new tree in my life and found out it really was a native tree to Colorado. Mostly in the western half of the state. I went back and bought two of them. One of the two had started to develop mature bark at the base of the trunk. The other tree was pretty much straight up and down. So I decided to work on the smallest of the two with the more mature bark. That was about 6 years ago and the trees were allowed to grow how ever they wanted. After a few years of growth I decided to chop back the best of the two. I chopped the tree back pretty hard and reduced most of the major branches. The following year Owen Reich was in town for a work shop and he gave a tree analysis of it. He thought it was a Ginkgo when he first saw it. He was very impressed with Single Leaf Ash trees. I allowed him to give it a styling and he made a few changes to the tree. The featured photo above is courtesy of Southwest Colorado Wildflowers.
The tree was allowed to grow again for the next several years and it responded back with new branches every where. The bark has continued to mature up the trunk almost like a cork bark elm. The cork bark is now pretty much all the way up the trunk. The tree was finally wired and and potted in a new pot from Taikeo Earth last year (2016). The tree is just now starting to leaf out and looks to be in really good condition. The tree spent the winter in the garage with temperatures reaching down to 27 degrees.
The leaves on this tree are about the size of a nickel, very small for an Ash tree. There are some web sites were they state the tree may have compound leaves. I have not seen that on my two trees. My two trees have blossomed and the seeds look like normal Ash tree seeds.
In the wild this tree has deadwood on it that rivals any Juniper in the world. Please see the gallery below to see some incredible deadwood.
There was one set back with the tree. The tree had Irish Moss growing on top of the soil and part way up the trunk. I removed the moss from the soil ok, but the corked bark came off the trunk where the moss was. I do not allow any moss to form on the soil or trunk now. Irish moss is a problem around here and seems to grow everywhere. I may try a different moss in the future on the soil.
Articles:
Single Leaf Ash by National Park Service New 08-12-2017
Videos:
Single leaf Ash Fraxinus anomala by Grand Junction Parks and Recreation New 08-12-2017
Update 01-16-2021: The tree was attacked by squirrels and was killed when they damaged to much of the fleshy roots. The dumb neighbor feeds the squirrels.
Here are some photo’s of the tree this spring. I unfortunately do not have any before photo’s of the tree. My photo’s may be deceiving to you and you may think the tree is pretty large, but it is not. I am guessing it is about 14″ tall, a very nice small sized tree.
The tree was entered in the local Bonsai show on 09-10-2017, Here are a couple of photo’s of the tree. New 09-10-2017
Here are some updated photos taken on 08-12-2017, the bark is starting to come back on the roots where Irish Moss damaged it. New 08-12-2017
I will update this page as the tree continues to develop (spring 2017).
The following photo’s are wild yamadori trees taken by on his Bonsai Tonight website. New 04-11-2017
