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Planted Maple tree
- Thread starter RxPain-
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- Joined
- Jan 31, 2018
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- 3,517
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- Location
- "The Tropic of Trafford"
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- Keir Hardy
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I've had some success with straightening a tree.
We had a sorbus was progressively leaning over to the left, so seven years ago I attached a plastic washing line beteen it and the concrete post of the back fence.
Over a few months I shortened the line a couple of inches at a time. I left it tied for a couple of years.
This is it five years ago, the trunk was straighter but the top still leaned to the left. But when I removed the line it stayed in the same position. I then attached the line further up and left that under tension for a couple of years.
This is it last year, there's no way I would have been able to straighten the trunk, but it's now unsupported and the top half is growing vertically. If I hadn't have straightened it, the top by now would be over the pagoda.
Yours presents a more difficult problem. What you could do is get a long dowl of about an inch and a half diameter and with insulating tape strap it to the trunk in half a dozen places where it's bending. That may straighten the trunk in this instance, I had some success with straightening the trunk a small young tree in this way. Also stake it at an angle and gradually straighten the lean, but just a bit at a time over several months.
We had a sorbus was progressively leaning over to the left, so seven years ago I attached a plastic washing line beteen it and the concrete post of the back fence.
Over a few months I shortened the line a couple of inches at a time. I left it tied for a couple of years.
This is it five years ago, the trunk was straighter but the top still leaned to the left. But when I removed the line it stayed in the same position. I then attached the line further up and left that under tension for a couple of years.
This is it last year, there's no way I would have been able to straighten the trunk, but it's now unsupported and the top half is growing vertically. If I hadn't have straightened it, the top by now would be over the pagoda.
Yours presents a more difficult problem. What you could do is get a long dowl of about an inch and a half diameter and with insulating tape strap it to the trunk in half a dozen places where it's bending. That may straighten the trunk in this instance, I had some success with straightening the trunk a small young tree in this way. Also stake it at an angle and gradually straighten the lean, but just a bit at a time over several months.
Your Maple (Acer) is already staked and extensively supported with guy-lines. It seems to have developed its lean at exactly the point that stake and lines stop. Is this tree in the path of a strong, frequent wind that always comes from the same direction? Some of that bend is now set into the trunk and even re-straightening the trunk higher up with a taller stake seems on the edge of ridiculous.
The tree is by no means doomed due to its lean. As its trunk and branches get thicker it will begin to hold up better in the face of the wind, though the tree will likely never be fully symmetrical in its habit. Overall, your garden (yard) seems very bare of other trees and shrubs. Planting a grove or other well-arranged assemblage of large plants might break up the force of the wind in your garden. This would give all or most of the plants some reprieve from the wind's affects.