Unusual tree forms---share yours

I’m interested in unusual tree forms either by chance or design.

This Dula Beauty lent itself to an open center design. Once I placed a Baya Marisa graft it grew straight up the center. I think I’m going to go with Baya Marisa as the central leader and the original tree as the scaffolds. I never intended it that way but it will be an interesting combination. I need to cut back the scaffolds to encourage branching.

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Looks like your tree is doing the Spock “Live long and prosper” hand gesture. Have you tried notching?

People shared some strange looking trees in
https://growingfruit.org/t/ugly-trees-picture-thread

Local native black walnut tree that I spotted from the highway, many years ago. I have a graft of it that is bearing nuts, but not really displaying any of the serpentine growth habit that drew my eye to the ortet.
SBR - 1

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Reminds me of my corkscrew willow. Beautiful!

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Like the center limb. :smiley:

I started fooling around with sculptural freestanding espaliers some years back after being exposed to the work of Axel Erlandson. A bunch make use of pleaching to force branches to inosculate- I.e. self graft or grow together when touching. Kind of lark really.

I’ve tried mainly apples and mulberries as subjects. Mulberries are a lot more sensitive to dominance of branches and buds, and readily aborts stuff facing downward or intertwining, I’ve come to realize. Apples ,on the other hand, have been more tolerant. The apples are all on self-sown “volunteer” rootstock topworked to good cultivars but with interstems of M26 or a roadside find dwarf weeping crab.

They all could probably have used a bit more pruning and training these last couple of years. Nice blossom set this year, hoping for some good yields





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One of the most unusual forms I’ve ever seen is surely the fantail or dragon willow, which produces surreal fasciated branches.


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