They probably will only need support for the first couple of growing seasons. With those great big leaves it's understandable.

I've never had any flop over. Perhaps your soil is very sandy and loose and/or you have great winds.

Interesting.

I've got 2 new Carpathian walnuts, which are an English walnut type. The smaller tree is free standing.

The 10 ft tall tree just came out of a pot, so it is staked, but loosely. Enough support to steady the tree if the wind shoves on it, but the wires are loose enough so they aren't providing any support when the air is calm and the tree isn't moving.

The tall tree is self supporting, but it did have the wind blow it nearly over when it was still in the pot. The top of the tree is large compared to the root ball and I was worried that if we got one of our 40 mph winds, it would shove the tree over and rip the root ball out of the soil.

Both my walnut trees have sturdy, self-supporting trunks. It's hard for me to imagine a walnut simply flopping over.

Maybe a very young small tree would droop over if it needed water?

Trees need "exercise" and perhaps a small tree that had been too sheltered might be weak. The wind blowing the tree strengthens the trunk with the movement. If a young plant has never been exposed to any wind, it might be weak, although my actual experience with weak plants has been limited to seedlings started inside the house.

No problem any more with weak seedlings. Mine get their daily exercise from a small fan blowing across them.

I bought 2 last fall from Stark's. They were only about a foot tall, and fairly thin. The new growth that came out on them is prolific, since I used a good deal of composted manure on them, and they did need support this season. But, in another year or two at most they won't.