The Leader

Do you see that? The struggling redbud has a leader. There is a stem poking up from the very top with leaves on it and that is news.
 

It's news because this little tree kept losing the top stem to winter dieback every year for the seven years it has been in my garden. The tree lived, leafed out, even flowered each spring, but the top vertical branch died back each winter and I had to cut it out.

So the tree never gained any height. Each year it would send up a nice leafy top branch in summer and each year it would die out over winter and have to be cut back in spring.

Look closer. There it is this spring, sticking up. Our leader.

It's a Cercis reniformis 'Oklahoma' (but now called Cercis canadensis var. texensis, they keep changing nomenclature). It is adapted to dry western conditions. It's hardy to zone 6 and revised maps tell us Santa Fe's winter cold zone is now zone 6.

But I found in Connecticut that there are woody plants, trees especially, that are adapted to one zone when mature but need a warmer zone for the first years. I think this redbud is like that. It isn't really winter hardy in zone 6 at first, but gets to be when more established.

It's taken seven years but finally in year eight the top branches didn't die back. Winter didn't half kill this.

I'm declaring victory.