i hear ya horster ... you are correct.. i have no experience in this particular tree .. he said he is willing to kill it .. all i am saying.. is play with it.. learn something new .. if it works.. whatever it is.. he learns something .. and then kills it.. lol ... if it doesnt work.. he learns something.. and then he kills it.. lol ... no need to simply chuck it in the burn pile.. w/o learning something ... i had a redbud.. that refused all attempts at structure... actually dad bought it for me.. for my first house ... and they also .... dont like to conform to the tree norm .. so he came over.. once a year.. and chopped it to a straight trunk ... and then kept coming back all summer.. and messing with it ... and i swear he chopped it to the ground 3 years running ... i really didnt care what he did with his tree.. as mom brought her bachelor son left over dinner, when they came over.. lol ... and eventually.. he got what he wanted out of it.. and i got fed 'mom's cookin' .... and we left a 20 foot beautifully formed redbud.. when i moved out 10 years later ... what did i know.. i though he was nuts.. but he was having fun.. learning ... ken ps: if you do cut to straight trunk.. the cut is not flat.. its at a 45 degree angle.. with.. if you can find one.. a bud within about a half inch of the top edge ... this sheds water.. and will allow for healing when the trunk grows to many more inches thick ...

I will take photos tomorrow of the trees and post them. I have had pistache trees on my property for many years and they always stay green full Spring and Summer. The one female that is about seven years old had its leaves turn yellow in June and dropped a lot of them and the green berries turned brown. After aerating and putting in a lot of fertilizer spikes the leaves stopped turning yellow and the green leaves that were left have stayed green and are only turning yellow a bit today. The other pistache trees are very healthy and are dropping yellow and gold leaves right now which is usual for this time of year. The berries on the healthy females should have turned orange but they didn't. I don't remember what the fertilizer spikes were. Understand that my soil may be different than yours because I'm West of Fort Worth on what had been a dairy farm. Right now, typically, a pistache tree should have some healthy green leaves with bright yellow leaves with bright orange areas. Berries would be turning red. If you bought your trees from a good nursery they may be guaranteed for replacement. I get mine at Calloways and keep the receipt. Because yours was planted in April it still could have been damaged by the freeze in February depending on where the nursery was. I have hundreds of trees on my property and so do my neighbors. Many other trees were having issues this summer with some neighbors needing tree surgeons to come out. They were told that the problem was mostly because of the February freeze. The native oaks did well but more ornamental trees were stressed,

These are great trees in north Texas, but Ken is spot on about dealing with poor weak branching as they grow - this is a characteristic of these trees. Once they get above 20ft or so, they're pretty good about maintaining a nice oval crown on their own... other than trimming the occasional rubbing branches or "whips" that grow out from the bottom of larger limbs. We have a lot of these in our part of Dallas which suffered little, if any, damage from the ice storms last winter that tore up a lot of our oaks. My impression is that any reputation for weakness is more likely due to poor branching that was not rectified when the trees were young. There's also a germ of truth in all of the other objections, so here are some thoughts from our selection and experience with our tree: Invasiveness ("produces seedlings") - A legitimate concern in some parts of the country. Nursery industry has dealt with it by producing cloned males. If you bought your tree from a major grower within the last 15 years, I suspect it's most likely male. This is probably the major strike in the male vs female debate. Seems the strength of any arguments for cutting down established female trees would depend a lot on their locations (urban lot vs natural park space, etc.). Male vs female - Main arguments for female are the berries, which are attractive while on the tree, and less pollen than the males. Main argument for male is no potentially invasive berries - which probably trumps most other considerations. However, male flowers put out a LOT of pollen, so some concern has been raised over risk of increasing problems for those with sensitivity if/as usage of this tree grows. Trashiness - Does not seem that different to me from several other common trees and less than others: pollen is a problem over parked cars, flower/fruit/leaf debris are problems over driveways and pools, etc. Consistency/duration of fall color - Not one you mentioned, but something we've seen. There's a lot of variability among the trees in our neighborhood. Some don't ever reach that vivid red, some drop their leaves within a few days of the color change, and others seem to hold onto a good portion of their vibrant red leaves for weeks. Someone planting this tree for a great fall display could be disappointed... even if the tree is otherwise beautiful. Planting a known named cultivar is not an absolute guarantee, but can improve the odds of good fall color.

I commented about that in your other post at http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/trees/msg0820402827323.html?7 The bark is peeling because the underlying wood is dead. Remove the dead branch. Here is a link that might be useful: your other post