Moved into new place (location Fort Collins CO, elevation ~5000ft) and outside of old elms there are these two younger trees and oddly both of them on opposite sides of property are growing south, significantly.
There’s the question of WHY other than the seller poorly planted and hugely neglected, well, everything. The why could be important if you think it’s for reasons beyond human planting errors as I do plan on putting in trees come spring.
But more so, can their growth be redirected in any way. Not so much the fruit tree (which honestly has some trunk damage and will n d to be taken out) but the pine. I’d love to save the ponderosa. 🌲
by moth_glasswings
1 Comment
There could be a few reasons. But the most likely reason is called phototropism. Trees tend to lean towards the sunlight and grow more branches on the side where they get the most sunlight. In the northern hemisphere, the sunniest side is generally the southern side, followed by the western side. The Ponderosa is probably leaning to the south extra hard due to the house partially blocking any sunlight that comes from the north
The lean can be changed by staking trees while they’re young so they grow upright. I’m unsure if these trees are too old to still stake or not, I’ll leave that up to an actual arborist
Other reasons that trees lean a certain direction include intense winds (like the trees at the very top of a mountain), being planted poorly, loose soils, root damage, or competition from other trees (if you plant a baby tree near a tall tree it’ll grow away from the tall tree to get more sunlight). But in this case it’s highly likely to just be phototropism