japanese snowbell

I have a japanese snowbell that I recently pruned. Today I noticed that everywhere I pruned has major yellow gross sappy stuff dripping from it. I mean major amounts. It doesn't look nice at all. I'm wondering if the tree is now susceptible to bad insects and disease and is putting this sap stuff out because it's in a weakened state.

I was always told the best time to trim a tree is before the sap starts running in the spring when it's still dormant. Here in zone 5 that would be February or March. Sounds like you waited too long to trim. It will probably stop dripping and seal itself.

I did some internet research and one site said to prune japanese snowbells *after* they bloom. Too late now! I wonder if I can get that drippy sap off there somehow. It really looks bad!

How big were those branches you cut? Major ones? It may seal itself over the summer.

Some were major. It's not a HUGE tree. It keeps getting branches broken in the winter by snows and wind. It's wider than it is tall. It's maybe about 6 feet tall.

I trimmed a larger lower branch on the 6' tree infront of my house and noticed a huge glob of sap coming out. I just pruned it to prevent someone poking their eye out on the walk past the tree. I think we went from cold to warm quickly. I just scraped the sap off the cut stem and kinda washed it off.

Sounds like that's typical for this tree then. Glad to hear it!

How is the snowbell doing? I was thinking of purchasing one for my side yard. How much heat can it take? I found a Nursery that
had one for sale @ $279. I want to make sure it can handle the California Central Valley heat.

It's doing great! No problems at all. I'm not sure how much heat it can take or what the zone requirements are. We live in the PNW where it never gets real hot for too long.

$279 seems like a lot of money. I'd look around a bit!!

According to Sunset, it's good for Sunset zone 14 which is where Manteca is http://plantfinder.sunset.com/sunset/plant-details.jsp?id=2797 I'd probably go on the shadier end of its sun/shade tolerance and keep it out of a lot of PM sun though if you want to be on the safe side, I think zone 14 probably has hotter summers than many of the other zones it's listed for. And I'd probably look for a cheaper one unless you can find some others growing in your area that look happy, I wouldn't want to spend that much money on something I wasn't 200% positive I had the perfect spot for! Cheaper ones will probably be smaller though so you'll have to wait longer for it to get to mature size.