These symptoms can be caused by soooo many things! It's really impossible for any of us to help you find the solution without actually visiting the site. What we can do, though, is list some of the factors that are known to be culprits, and let YOU be the detective.

The first things that comes to my mind are all of the problems associated with incorrect planting procedures such as planting too deep, putting a bunch of amendments into the planting hole or backfill, if B&B...planting with all of the ties and straps still wrapped around the root ball, and insufficient after-planting watering.

Does the site drain well? Is your tree planted into your lawn where it could be affected by 'weed and feed' products? Was the tree healthy when you purchased it (as far as you could tell)? Is it properly mulched?

I'm sure that others will have some ideas, too.

P.S. In my experience, the number one cause of new tree problems is planting too deeply.

Goodness gracious! Heavens no!

Didn't plant it too deep.
Didn't use any ammendments.
Didn't leave on burlap/wire.
Didn't leave on ties or straps. (Was actually a container)
Didn't use weed & feed.
Didn't underwater. (Used tree gator)
Didn't overwater.
Didn't improperly mulch.
As far as I could tell the tree was healthy when I bought it or else I wouldn't have bought it!

The tree is planted in a slightly raised (~4" berm). The site is part shade, the soil is clay so it doesn't drain particularly well, no. That hasn't stopped other trees from thriving in it but I realize Gingkos are not 'other trees'.

Let's continue troubleshooting, please.

Puzzling. You did everything right. The tree should have grown quite a bit by now.

I have to laugh about the HOA sending you a letter. It's not fun dealing with HOA when they have their own ideas of how things should be done, not about being fair... Kinda like trying to deal with Commies in my case right now. I half expect to receive a letter from HOA saying I have too many trees and need to cut them down...

Well you can do what I did and that was run for the board and I got elected. The management company kisses your butt when you're on the board of directors.

Look who's writing letters now.... suckas......☺☺☺☺

By the way I got a separate letter for having too many trees too. I went and knocked on the door of the person what in charge of complaining about that stuff and said Wuzzah? And for some strange reason he quit.

I planted a much snmaller gingko four years ago and did everything right--I have been planting trees for 65 years--and it has not grown an inch yet. It puts out "spur" leaves and that is all. And in addition, if it gets dry here and I don't water it for two weeks, it starts dropping its leaves. After I water it, it re-grows much of the lost leaves back, but doesn't grow. I planted it in the area that has the absolute best soil. Can these things be a bit "finiky" for a while and then grow well?

--Spruce

We have a Princeton Sentry as well, and we haven't seen much growth of it either. Planted as a 7 gallon plant ~5' tall about 2 years. However it also sustained a a very hard freeze last year, and had to push new shoots (did this through the previously frozen sprouts). Tree can't even stand up on it's own. I have come to the conclusion that I'm going to have to keep it staked until it finally adds some caliper, whenever that may be.

I'm sure your aware that they have a reputation for being slow to establish, and it certainly seems to be the case. Also I would expect the reduced sunlight to also slow establishment. Simply not as much photosynthetic products to be used in growing more roots, and shoots. So IMHO your experiencing the product of slow establishment to begin with, somewhat larger plant, combined with limited photosynthesis due to reduced sun exposure.

Unfortunately, it may be a couple years longer for your gingko.

is this the correct facts ...

you planted a 10 foot tree ... in 40% shade ...

i would offer the following problems, without solution:

lack of sun

improper digging of field grown stock

improper ball and burlap or potting after digging

abuse at the nursery or in delivery to the nursery

the rest sounds like you did it right .. but for sun ...

i have a ginko. ... 5 years in situ .. looks nearly the same as it did when i planted it .. in full sun ...

except for increasing light.. time is the only remedy ..

good luck

ken

PS: buy and plant smaller stock.. to decrease the time for re-establishment ..

It was a 15 gallon container.

Gingkos in this area... most of them look fine. Maybe 30% look a bit sparse or look to be struggling a little.
There are quite a few larger ones that were planted in commercial landscapes in shade conditions similar to mine and they seem to be doing OK.

I guess I'll give it another year and see what happens. I don't want to spend the money on a replacement tree right now anyway.
Mine too looks like it needs to be supported by a bamboo pole.

Good luck with your tree. I've always wanted to grow one but my soil is terrible for gingkos. I have shantung maple that had brillant yellow fall color last fall so that is good enough for me!

By the way, that's funny about you getting a letter for having too many trees. What was really the reason? leaves getting blown on their treeless lawn? I planted a bunch because my corner lot faces south and west and it gets very hot in the summer... I can always ask HOA "if i cut down trees, will you pay electric bills"

first.. please get your zone next to your name... it might be more important that the smiley face and music notes ...

i dont think i said what i meant to say ...

whether or not a ginko can take 40% sun .. is not the issus ...

the issue.. MIGHT BE ... that a recently transplanted ... un-established tree .. MIGHT need full sun to get established ... does that might make more sense ...

mature plants can take a lot of abuse .. or make do with cultural variables .. that are not perfect ... they adapt rather well to anything mother earth will throw at them ...

if we presume.. that a ten foot tree ... should have ten foot roots.. to support the ten foot tree.. just as an example ... think about how big that 15 gal pot was.. and how insufficient the root mass was for that plant ... in a perfect nursery setting.. the nursery folks can do miraculous things with water and fertilizer ...

the issue is how long will it take the roots.. to catch up the the plant ...

and then the issue is.. how much root growth can it achieve in reduced sun ...

once it gets 'established' .... it should be fine.. all other things equal ... its just how long that is going to take ...

good luck

ken

PS: where are you?????

Glad to run across this thread.

I planted another narrow cultivar, Ginkgo biloba 'Magyar' a few years ago (spring, 2006) and can attest to the slow growth. Mine was a sapling from Forestfarm, and it's the slowest of any of the small (3') trees I bought at that time. Having read that they were slow to establish, I put this one in a spot where it could potentially remain, although I had a better permanent location in mind. It's "classmates" will all be moved out of the same nursery bed into their final positions this year, but I think the gingko will be staying put. It's a little taller than it was 3 years ago, but the growth has been incredibly slow, and I don't want to start over with the waiting game.

So, if you're sure you didn't do anything awful when planting your gingko, just be patient. That's my plan, and I'm sticking with it.

You might have a twisted bunched up root system from being grown in a pot. A 10' tree is way too big for a 15 gallon container. It may have spent many years in small pots, leading to a worthless root system unable to support this tree. I always dig up and "autopsy" my dead and poor-doing trees and this is a common problem. The other thing with the Ginkgo is that they won't die of thing like verticillium wilt, but they will struggle. They seem to just hang on enough to survive. In my experience here in Zone 5, a healthy Ginkgo grows like crazy, even when young. My own seedling puts on 4' per year.

"You might have a twisted bunched up root system from being grown in a pot. A 10' tree is way too big for a 15 gallon container. It may have spent many years in small pots, leading to a worthless root system unable to support this tree. I always dig up and "autopsy" my dead and poor-doing trees and this is a common problem. The other thing with the Ginkgo is that they won't die of thing like verticillium wilt, but they will struggle. They seem to just hang on enough to survive. In my experience here in Zone 5, a healthy Ginkgo grows like crazy, even when young. My own seedling puts on 4' per year.

So are you suggesting I should go ahead and autopsy mine?

By the way, that's funny about you getting a letter for having too many trees. What was really the reason? leaves getting blown on their treeless lawn? I planted a bunch because my corner lot faces south and west and it gets very hot in the summer... I can always ask HOA "if i cut down trees, will you pay electric bills"

The letter said to stop planting so much "landcaping" and to contact them to discuss what needs to be done to restore the aesthetic of the community. The aesthetic of the community is to do nothing to enhance or add value to your property and to keep it looking 'just built & moved into' forever. My landscaping has increased by about 20% since I got the letter. Oops.

I planted another narrow cultivar, Ginkgo biloba 'Magyar' a few years ago (spring, 2006) and can attest to the slow growth. Mine was a sapling from Forestfarm, and it's the slowest of any of the small (3') trees I bought at that time.

Usually it's the people in the northeast that say how wicked fast their gingkos grow. I wish I had known about this slow establishment when I selected a prominent location for mine.

first.. please get your zone next to your name... it might be more important that the smiley face and music notes ...

Why? I'm in USDA zone 7. Does that bring us any closer to unraveling the mystery now that you know this? I'm afraid I must beg to differ that what is there is more important.☺

I would let it leaf out this spring--if it still is doing poorly(that's 4 years!), then I would remove and replace. Something is not right.

Your zone information IS important - it can often be the determining factor of why a plant is not performing as expected and can guide recommendations for other plant choices. That's why it appears on your member profile when you sign up.

What you also didn't indicate was what the root system looked like at planting. A 15G container for a 10' tree is a pretty tight situation and circling or girdling roots and other issues from being potbound can certainly affect establishment and growth. If you didn't examine and open the root system and uncircle or remove girdling roots at planting, the only way you can do so now is to expose the root system, see what it looks like and attempt to make any corrections. But if this is the problem, after 4 years in the ground, it may be too late.

I'd also be interested to know the planting technique you followed, given the description of your soil as clay and with poor drainage. A 4" berm is not much of a raised situation to provide better drainage and if too much of the rootball is sitting in a deeper clay 'bucket' (rather than a very shallow, wide planting hole), the tree may just be gradually rotting to death.

Also, most of the literature does remark that gingkos are slow to establish and with a slow to moderate rate of growth.

So now that you know my zone, has that helped?
How could it possibly?
There is a zone 7 in 31 states!
Other than finding out a range of record low temperature averages, the number 7 could not have done a better job of the description of my climate that I gave. Mild winter, hot humid summer. Just like China. What better of a description could you ask for?

Telling me to put a zone number in that space instead of icons is squelching my creativity and individualism. It's not much different that telling someone to remove their landscaping so their home will blend in with everyone else who hasn't done any landscaping. Instead I encourage you to embellish your zone field to tell us more about who you are as a person so we can all get to know one another a little better in such an impersonal medium.

As for the roots, I inspect trees before I buy them. If in a container, I pull them out and take a look-see. This was not a cheap tree and the nursery didn't offer a warranty so you better believe I looked at it carefully before buying.

The berm is a raised planting bed. It wasn't for drainage, it just happened to be there. It consisted of the same native clay soil.

And if it is well documented that these are slow to establish, I must have missed that. I think that must be the reason my tree isn't established. Either that or it's not enough sun.

iforgotitsonevermind,
I for one rarely give out personal information, and so I agree with not giving out specific information, however general information (zone/region)gives some indication of length of growing season, rainfall, rainfall pattern etc which can all be helpful. With that said people are only trying to help you, but I'm not going to argue with you as you have obviously gotten upset.

Just something for you to think about,
Arktrees

I do have the following to add that could be of some benefit to you. Allot of trees in containers (I don't know the percentage), are in fact "containerized". These trees are actually field grown, dug bare root, roots pruned, and then planted in a container and given some time to recover before being sold as container stock. I don't know it this is what happen here, but it would seem likely to significantly slow recovery. This is due to the fact that as many or more root are lost, than if the tree was balled and burlaped, so that there is a great deal of regeneration must occur, which is likely to be slowed due to limited sun exposure. It may be beneficial to dug a small test hole with a trowel a short distance from the tree to determine if roots are spreading properly. Obviously if you are only making a small hole, and the roots are spreading well, then this is a minor lose of roots compared to what may have happened previously, and will give you a good ideal as to what is happening below ground. But of course you don't want to repeat this very much. I intend to do just this with our kousa dogwood, did just this for a tulip tree last fall that did not exactly thrive last year.

Containerized trees are very common. Our first Fall Fiesta Sugar Maple I planted improperly for our soil. By the time I realized that I had screwed up, I dug the tree up, and placed it back in a container but the tree eventually died. Many months later, I removed the dead tree from the container, removed the soil, and discovered it was a containerized tree. In the intervening time I planted another Fall Fiesta Sugar Maple elsewhere that is doing very well so far, and my discovery of the containerizing of the original explained the growth rings I had seen on the new tree that didn't seem to make sense. The current years growth (at the time of planting in the fall) had been much less than previously years growth. It had shoots of approximately 6-8 inches, while growth rings (can bee sine in the bark on shoots when bark color and texture changes from one year to the next) on other trees indicated that they often grew a great deal more than that. So apparently the tree had been dug from the field the fall before i bought it, planted into a container, and allowed to recover for the summer, and fill the pot with roots. The tree was then shipped late summer to my destination, at which time I bought it in the fall, and planted it. Then last spring it grew about double what it had the previously year (the recovery summer), but still not as much as it as has been visible in other larger trees. I bring this up, as it may give you some clue as to whether the tree has in back been field grown, then containerized. At the least it may give somebody else some ideals for this problem.

iforgotitsonevermind,
I for one rarely give out personal information, and so I agree with not giving out specific information, however general information (zone/region)gives some indication of length of growing season, rainfall, rainfall pattern etc which can all be helpful. With that said people are only trying to help you, but I'm not going to argue with you as you have obviously gotten upset.

Just something for you to think about,
Arktrees

I am not upset and I am not trying to argue. ☺ See, this is precisely why it's more important to use ☺☺☺smiley faces☺☺☺ so you know that I am not mad. ☺ I'm just pointing out that 31 states plus 2 canadian provinces have a zone 7.☺ A zone 7 in New Mexico has nowhere near the rainfall I have in Georgia.☺ A Zone 7 in Texas has nowhere near the heat or length of growing season I have.☺ The zone 7 in British Columbia has nowhere near... nowhere near anything in common with my climate whatsoever, come to think of it. ☺ I'm just saying that hardiness zones are not that useful to talk about unless you're talking about cold hardiness and even then, one must take into account a myriad of other factors.

Now that I got that off my chest.. (☺)

The tree in question was field stock and it was transplanted to a container. ☺ I know this because I talked to the grower before buying it. ☺☺ It was in good shape when I bought it though. I have a letter from my HOA proving that I have successfully planted numerous trees at my home ☺☺☺ There may be a number of reasons the tree is not thriving but one reason I think we can safely rule out is that it was planted incorrectly.

Why not take a picture and post it. Its a lot easier than posting your zone.

I'm guessing that your tree is still becoming established at this site. With less than ideal sunlight and drainage, it could take a long time.

Gingko grows perfectly well in clay soil, as long as it drains sufficiently. There are loads of them around here, planted directly into hard, red, unamended clay. Once established, they do very nicely.

That settles it then.
I will try to master the ancient Chinese art of patience.

Thank you all for your inputs.

We all realize the limitations of Zone designation, therefore, listing your region is a good addition or alternative. My zone 8 Seattle has very little in common with the Zone 8 in Texas.

I have rooted cuttings of Ginkgo and not only are they slow to grow, they are slow to find which way is up. Blue China Fir and Coast Redwood is another one if the cuttings are taken from a branch rather than the leader. I call those 'Dumb cuttings'.