I planted this a bit over a year ago. I had an ok initial growth spurt, but has not done much since. I pruned some of the lower limbs/shoots to encourage it to focus its energy on higher limbs to create a nice shade canopy. I’ve been feeding it fairly regularly.
I think that the pruning might have been a mistake? Now the thing looks like me at 15 (ie tall, lanky, not particularly attractive).
By contrast I’ve just planted two more about 8 weeks ago and they look great! (See pink flowered pictures).
What can I do to the lanky one to get it to fill out and go a bit more gang busters?
by Feisty_Amphibian4436
6 Comments
I’m on the central coast, NSW
Just let it do its thing. Will be great when it eventually gets a canopy with that single trunk. Theyre not super fast growers, just be patient
I think it’s kind of loveable, showing great promise. I suspect it will grow out of the gangly teenage stage and achieve great dignity in maturity.
I would put a large stake there to encourage it to grow straight. Could be overfertilised.
Leave it be. They toughen up as they need too.
Yes, if you take a trees lower branches off to make the canopy high, it does this. I prefer to do that later if I’m going to do it to a landscape tree, just to let it have more foliage for faster growth, but this works too.
At this stage, getting it to ‘fill out’ will mean cutting it back hard. If you DONT want it to branch out low later in life, don’t do this. If it’s was smaller, you’d get faster growth letting it spread when young, at this stage, it’s got quite high, and can be left to do its own thing, IF that’s the shape you’re going for.