What can you do with a leaning tree?
This tree almost caused Lynn and me to change restaurants during the Pandemic. When we wanted a night out of the house we went through their drive through and parked in their lot. This was the view we had of a recently planted landscape tree. The outings were great. The view – not so much.
This kind of catastrophic lean usually happens when a new tree isn’t planted correctly. Its root ball shifts in wet soil, generally because the tree is exposed to strong wind from a prevailing direction.
When that happens you have a short period of time during which you must reset the entire tree – root ball and all – so that the trunk will be vertical.
Why you need to act quickly…
Wood of the trunk is not a living, growing tissue. It is a permanent, actually dead, tissue. That’s why we use it to build structures that will last for hundreds of years. Once cells in the wood have grown at a particular angle they will have developed a memory and they will not be able to straighten themselves back to “normal.”
When a tree is growing at a lean, “reaction wood” is formed, either “tension wood” on the top side of the bending tissue or “compression wood” on the bottom side. These reaction woods function to lock in the angle rather than reversing it.
You’re ahead of me already.
This all means that you have only a few weeks to get the tree dug and reset before it will be too late. Once the reaction wood has formed there will be no pushing, pulling, staking, cabling, jerking, or screaming that will give you a permanent fix on a tree with “the leans.” As soon as you remove the artificial support, the tree will gradually go back to what it has programmed into its memory.
Less known to most of us, the root system is doing similar things. Important roots have been torn loose or were lost in the digging, and until the tree is given a chance to replace them, things will head in the wrong direction.
So, is staking the long-term answer? Hopefully not. The ideal answer is to buy each new tree with a soil ball substantial enough to anchor it firmly in its planting hole.
Use three wooden stakes spread 120 degrees apart with taut cables and cable clamps above the mid-point of the trunk to hold the tree firmly upright for 12-24 months until you’re sure it’s secure.
One of those stakes should be directly south of the trunk since the prevailing summer winds (season when the tree has its full canopy of leaves) will be from the south here in Texas.
While you have your tree staked take great care not to allow the cables to become tight around the trunk. That’s called “girdling,” and it’s a sure way to lose your new tree. Loosen or remove the cables before that can happen.
Now you know why it’s so critical that you get your trees planted perfectly plumb from the outset. That tree is counting on you. It’s going to have to live with your decisions the rest of its life.