Okay now to my question.

4 of these healthy trees are leaning. 3 of them are leaning somewhat, not embarrassingly so, but they are leaning over maybe at 30 degree angle, and this one special tree is leaning at a 45 degree angle. When the next door neighbor came out to see how we were doing this afternoon he laughed at it and asked if it arrived on the short bus. I wasn't overjoyed at the remark but I knew he meant no harm. Honestly, it's a darling tree in that it's healthy and budded all over the place, but it leans at a 45 degree angel, from the very bottom of the tree to the top.

The other 3 trees are straight until half-way up, and THEN begin leaning. They are NOT bent. They look more like they are bending over to throw up. lol I have tried carefully bending them back and it has worked a little with the 3 trees. It's a very bendable tree. I think these trees can easily be trained to grow straight.

But this 45 degree angel "short bus" tree, not only leans at 45 degree angel but the top leader, the ONLY leader it has, was TOPPED. All the other trees' leaders have buds on them, but this tree doesn't because it was topped.

I called Forest Farm and Patty, who was lovely to talk to, said that Ray said all the these trees can be trained to grow straight in one growing season. That's great. We'll be staking them tonight.

But Patty said on this 4th short bus tree that she does not know why it was topped, but we will have to make a new leader. She said find a branch near the top, (which we have) and force it to become a new leader.

So my question is how do I force it to do that?

And my other question is, is it normal for trees, that are still babies at 2-3 feet, to lean so much? The other trees are perfectly straight. I know that trees in the forest aren't perfectly straight, but I want my trees straight. I paid a lot of money for them.

Oh, and we used ALL native soil. My husband went to work this afternoon feeling EVERY single shovel maneuver he made. He did a great job and we had a TON of native soil from our yard to backfill the holes. We saw so many rocks and earthworms! I saw at least a million of each. We dug from a back corner of our yard that looks like a mini gravel pit as we speak.

Anyway, if anyone could tell me if baby trees leaning are a "typical" finding in nurseries. And how do we force a new leader, or will this little branch just naturally take over? It looks like it could if it decided to.

next.. why not simply plant them straight up ..

as long as the root flare is proper ... there is no reason you cant simply line them up plumb????

forget about leaders for now.. just let them get established. and see how the tree reacts .. perhaps by fall .. you can take one off ... though i tend to bud burst next spring.. in case one dies ...

as for staking.. just do it ... presuming you can get a big enough stake.. thru the freshly turned soil.. that will stand the pull of the tree ... and just tie that sucker up ...

did you see my reply on the other post before you started???

if you want more specifics.. post some pix ...

ken

Another thing to be aware of, is that everything in that order budded immediately. So you have some stressful nights if the temps drop. For this reason, when I ship something in, I ways a couple weeks to see if it's going to buds quickly before I plant them.

With that said, you can do as Ken suggested and plant them more upright. If it leans a bit, most trees with straighten themselves as they grow. they most likely got this way from being grown in crowded conditions. All the individual plants grow away from one anther in an attempt to capture more light. So they end up bent every which way. If you steak them, VERY loosely pull them over in the direction you want them, so that they can move around ALLOT. I typically just use the stretch and tape loop it around without tying it to the stem. Has worked nicely for me. To establish a new leader, do a similar procedure on the highest limb. Pull it up vertical with the tip being easily the highest point of the plant. Except this time the steak (use a bamboo steak) needs to be close to the original main stem, and you need to tie it tighter, but don't constrict anything. If you go to a local nursery and look at the larger b&b trees, you can see more or less exactly how they did it. Thing is, you should not HAVE to do this. No excuses.

Hope this helped,
Arktrees

As for the leaning trees, I planted them and arranged them in the soil as to, as much as I could, make them as straight as possible. But there is only so much one can do unless you want to plant the trees sideways in the ground. lol

Arktrees, I am so sorry they hacked your tree. When you say hacked your tree, what do you mean exactly? Did you call them? Did they offer to do anything to help you?

As for all the budding, we stored all the trees outside on our porch for 9 days before we planted them to acclimate them. None of the buds have opened yet, but they look like they are on the cusp of doing so. Our maples all have buds too, but they don't look nearly as far along in the process as these hornbeams do.

Thank you so much for telling us exactly how to train a new leader. We're saving your information, although we are going to heed Ken's advice and wait a bit before starting to do that.

The other tree, had the top taken off of it as well. The tree then branched in something of a broom fashion, so that there were competing stems. So you have a stick, with a broom of stems on top. So I have been working back to a single stem, while trying not to retard it's growth too much. But it will always be crooked.

Both trees are relatively rare, and they were the only place I knew that I could get both at the same time. That was why I ordered from them. Everything else in the shipment were items I liked, but would not have bothered to ship in and of themselves. So the two plants I REALLY wanted, both had major issues.

All of which ='s A VERY PEEVED ARKTREES

That's my story in a nut shell. Hope your experience turns out better, but it sounds like your of to an iffy start.

Arktrees

step on the shovel... and bury it.. since the soil is fluffy ... push under it.. and rotate the tree straight .. by lifting slightly and rotating under ... and then stomp in the side where the shovel was .. [this is so simple to do.. but so hard to explain in words ...] .. and do avoid damaging the root zone ...

ken

Contrast that with a seed grown (almost all listings are graphed onto some other species) Acer pseudosieboldianum ssp takesimense, a VERY rare subspecies of Korean Maple, that I ran across on Ebay of all places. I took a chance, bought it, came in perfect, and is growing as would be expected for the subspecies takesimense (they are more columnar), so I believe I got the real deal. It has also been VERY vigorous.

Arktrees