It’s safe to plant elm trees!   Now that many excellent varieties have been developed that are extremely resistant to Dutch Elm Disease.  You can plant Elms with confidence.  Triumph Elm is a complex hybrid elm that has been extensively tested and proved itself to rank very high in its resistance to Dutch Elm Disease.

Not only is Triumph Elm a great choice for it’s disease resistance, but it is also a beautiful, fast growing, hardy, and versatile shade tree.  While triumph Elm is not a true American Elm, it certainly has an appearance very similar to American Elm, with noticeably larger leaves than Asian elms and a graceful, upward spreading vase shape that becomes a large tree casting plenty of cooling shade.

Triumph can grow in almost any soil, but will grow most quickly in soils with good moisture retention qualities, and plenty of sunshine.  At maturity Triumph Elm will reach 60′ – 70′ tall by 40+ feet wide.  Hardy in zones 4-7.

Another variety that has shown itself to be quite resistant to Dutch Elm Disease, and it offers a modest sized alternative to most of the other new Elm varieties that grow to a larger size.  Discovery Elm grows quickly, forming a dense, rounded, compact shape, and has limited seed production, which reduces litter.  The appearance is tidy and shapely, so much so that when I met a tree spade operator in one of our fields recently, he remarked how nice they were, and wanted to know which variety it was!

Like other elms, Discovery can be grown in a very wide variety of soil types and is super winter hardy with a rating into the very cold zone 3!