19-year-old American Liberty elm, dying of Dutch elm disease in a very public spot at the Acton Arboretum, Acton, MA. (Photograph by Todd Carley, added July 1, 2010)
Regrettably, I am no longer able in good conscience to recommend the use of American Liberty elms for any purpose, as I now have lost more than one of those trees to Dutch elm disease, the very ailment to which they were supposed to be resistant. (*) Nor will I maintain an ordinary web link to an entity which continues to promote such a tree without disclosing all the pertinent information.The following contact information and conspicuously broken link remain available for anyone who may wish to proceed with something other than a purchase, such as an insistent question, a comment about a dying tree, or maybe something more important:
Elm Research Institute, 11 Kit St., Keene, NH 03431; 603-358-6198.
( www "dot" elmresearch "dot" org ) For anyone interested in planting American elm trees which really can survive DED and recover from it, I can recommend in good conscience the varieties Valley Forge, New Harmony, Princeton, and Jefferson, all of which I believe to have levels of DED tolerance ranging from moderate to high. Additional cultivars of merit are likely to be released into the public domain by the U.S. Forest Service in the fairly near future, and I am looking forward to them.