Not from what I can tell but they are just getting ready to leave out at our place. WAY behind just about everything else. So it's a little hard to tell. I should have a better idea in a few more weeks but they had lots of green buds ready to pop open. The only 2 pictures I took out don't look like much.
Ironically my neighbor (ozzz) just asked me the same questions yesterday via email. What do I think about Dunstans, did mine survive. Etc. This is my response.
You know me well enough by now to know i do a lot of experimenting and testing. So I bought my 3 dunstan's from chestnut hill farms in Florida in 2012. The first year I kept them home in my garden in 7 gallon roottrapper bags and watered the heck out of them. They put on a heck of a root system that first year. In spring of 2013 I planted them out on the farm and gave them the same treatment that I give all my apple trees. A good cage, 2-3 bags of composted manure backfill, plastic/lumite, pea gravel, watersorb, the whole 9 yards. They did surprisingly well over their first year even though we had some drought conditions the later part of summer. Another key in my opinion to their success was planting them in a place where they would get some shade in the afternoon which is typically when the sun is the hottest of the day. I've read of plenty other people suggest this technique, they will burn up otherwise. Then the next test was winter. And as you know we had an absolutely brutal winter, one of the coldest in recent time. Much to surprise my Dunstan's are loaded with green buds. They're not actually leafed out yet (as of saturday) but there is lots of green buds and they should leaf out any day. So since they survived this past winter, I think that was a good test for hardiness.
So overall my thoughts, I would not plant thousands of them but if you want to plant a few I would think they should be ok. Any tree you plant in our sand, there is always a chance it can die. It's a tough climate up there in that sand, you are always rolling the dice. But so far in my limited testing they can hold up to a harsh winter. If you can get the walmart dusntans you would be doing good, they are typically a lot larger caliper stock to start with versus the trees I bought directly from chestnut hill farms. Who knows if these dunstan's will be all the rave that people actually claim they are. I don't believe there is any golden ticket or silver bullet. However, adding diversity is always key and important. These might be just another piece to the puzzle.
