The Siberian Elm from northeast Asia is not a really good quality tree. It is very twiggy with brown fissured bark that is not interesting. I have seen a few that look good, but very few. It is fast growing of about 2 feet/year, and it is brittle wooded and loses some branches due to storms, and drops lots of twigs much of the year. In many places in the Midwest, as in northeast Illinois, it is an invasive species that is usually a weed tree. It has invaded almost all of the USA from central Florida to southern California up into southern Canada. It was used to replace the American Elm after the Dutch Elm Disease devastated the latter, but it does not compare. It has tiny leaves about 3/4 to 3 inches long that fall green or poor yellow-green in autumn. It bears its seed in late spring. It should have been left in Asia.

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This tree may as well be the bane of my existence.
The bark is not very fascinating, and the leaves are not very pretty. No interesting fall colors, and no pretty flowers. Its branches are kind of brittle and tend to fall off and smoosh the plants below.

Worst of all, it seeds EVERYWHERE. I have sooooo many seedlngs everywhere. I spend HOURS on end pulling them up. Leave one to grow for a year or even half a year? Well, it's a pain to remove. I have about 15 of that type in my purple island bed.. This year it is my GOAL to remove and just get rid of them.

I think this is suitable for bonsai, but I don't recommend it very much for landscape trees if you have flower beds nearby. You can mow over the seedlings in a lawn... but you have to hand-weed the seedlings in garden beds.

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