Wonky leader on oak

General Gardening
1

Below are a couple pics of my fourth-season-from-seed Schuette’s Oak. It is approximately 2.5 – 3” caliper at the base, and about 12 feet tall. The terminal bud did not really thrive, and eventually died back, so one of the side shoots from the ‘whorl’ of laterals at the top of the leader took over. All good, but it’s got QUITE the lean.

Would you try to stake that straight? It bugs my OCD nature. Getting up there to do it is the other challenge. It looks pretty bad in the second shot, not so bad in the first shot from a different angle.

Also – do you think the next-highest branch there should be pruned back some (subordinate pruning?) or is it far enough out to not compete at this point?

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2

Almost all my trees lean like that. And what’s even funny is they lean to the north. Leave it be Bryan.

Dax

3

This leans West. INTO prevailing winds!

4

Only now noticed when looking at the pic that it’s got a little hint of fall color.

Usually turns a decent yellow-brown to gold color, although it fades quickly to brown.

5

Quite possible that the winds will do the work for you then. I know a man with a dozen or so standard trees (mostly apples) and he cannot prune them straight- they always grow away from the wind into the east.

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