We have plenty of pictures for beautiful trees. Let’s dedicate this thread to your ugly trees. Let’s see them.
To start, I offer my Flavor Supreme planted Spring 2021.
It started out as the most beautiful tree, but deer was obviously jealous and reduced it to a stump after first season. Out of the stump, grew many vigorous shoots in the second season, but unfortunately wind then decided to rip all the tender shoots off the trunk. Amazingly, more shoots regrew from the stump again later in the second season and now what you see below its appearance in current 3rd season, after being reduced to stump twice.
This tree is ugly but amazingly vigorous and really wants to live. If it wasn’t for frosts this year, it may have fruited.
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I’m not sure that I’d call any of my trees “ugly” but they certainly are not winning any structural awards amongst those who know.
Deer have done a number in the past which cuts out a lot of the structuring options. Its like the hooved hellions knew which branches I wanted and made it a point to eat them. Not to mention some cuts that I have made when FB strikes. So maybe not “ugly” but less traditional or ideal for sure.
My ugliest would be in the form of trunk lesions gained earlier in their lives that I worry about or my, probably dying, granny smith which reminds me of someone dying of malnutrition, wasting disease, or maybe vegan vampires. In this case there were a ton of tiny vampires that took to it last spring. Found a few yesterday so I need to get on that.
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We don’t do this, but there are unscrupulous tree services in the area that do top trees such as this oak. This is not an acceptable way to trim such trees.
Again, not our work.
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@Audi_o_phile Maybe the trimmer thought it was a crepe myrtle!
@busch83 Good use of grafting. Hope those lower branches fill in.
@sockworth, no kidding! I will allow our crew to top Bradford pears (if the customer is insistent on keeping them), or perform “crape murder” if the circumstances are just so, but that oak was positively butchered!
@Audi_o_phile , by the way, I’ve seen huge 40 ft ornamental pears being cut back severely to 20 ft, the same way as you showed with the oak. Not sure if they were trying to induce more blossoming or what, but it didn’t seem normal.
My ugly tree… the eu plum on the left in that pic.
Rosy Guage… got black knot twice… previous years… then this spring just after blooming… some kind of wilt. I did major surgery on it and the one remaining limb is healthy and looking good so far. Hopefully next spring will add some grafts to it, possibly completely change varieties… since RG is not doing well here.
The one on the right is Mt Royal.
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This is actually an excellent way to give the Bradford pears a new lease on life. They are very prone to splitting at crotches and seams, and this type of trimming creates a tremendous reduction of load on those weak joints. I would much rather remove a Bradford instead (pesky Callery spreaders that they are), but their growth habit will allow them to recover in a much better fashion [than oak, pine, sweetgum, sycamore, maple, birch, tulip poplar, etc].
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this may be ugly but it’s my favorite of our evergreens. it had to have more than half the top just cut right off. forget what the arborist said about it but there was something wrong with it and it seems to have fixed it.
it also has a fat belly for some reason I also can’t remember, but that isn’t harmful
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@TNHunter Ugly tree standalone, but interesting configuration with the tree next to it. Reminds me of a human tetris obstacle course.
@Audi_o_phile That’s right, I have at least 5 or 6 seedlings on my property I will eventually graft over. It’s amazing, I see families of wild calleries in ditches all over town.
@resonanteye Looks like you could decorate it as a totem pole for Halloween : )
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Montmorency cherry mostly dead from cherry leaf spot last year.
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Maybe it’s the camera angle, but I like how the lowest branch is facing the opposite direction by the time it get to the top.
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It goes up but sill comes towards the camera.
This decrepit holly was great for Halloween. The rest of the year it just seemed to have tree mange. I eventually pulled it down.
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@busch83 Great job with the decorations, I bet the kids really loved it.
Another pic from me. This McIntosh tree decided it wants to be either a slingshot or an American football field goal.
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I’ve got a second contender. Douglas fir planted by my partner in a really constricted space that has started to die. I cut off everything that wasn’t green, just to get the death process rolling. here’s the guy tonight with an ominous sky
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Oh my, looks like a lot of things on the way out are just chucked in that corner.
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yes it’s become the despair pile since the tree started getting cut more and more. as soon as it’s all cut back, I’ll clean it out and find a new spot to throw the hopeless things
