but last year it grew another branch from about the same location of the cut off leader. This branch shot straight up and grew almost 3 feet that summer!

==>>> try to catch them a bit sooner ... and no..we do NOT favor more than one leader.. as far as your ladder can reach ...

why ignore the rest of the garden.. you have the backbones.. all you need is time.. and budget...

what i see in your old strapping.. is the first real BIG BLOW.. coming along.. and snapping it at one or the other of the straps ...

i would free it.. and quit trying to make it perfect... which on reread.. you did ...

once the branches start filling in.. you will not see/notice the trunk ...

please go buy a few more.. so you can quit fixating on this one ... lol

ken

Awesome plot of land you have there (and nice tree)!

Nice rocks as well. The only readily available stone around here for a decent cost is field stone and they just don't look that great.

I don't see that one coming back to vertical on its own. If left that way it could take a set and continue on as a leaner. Not a desirable look for this tree.

Take a 10 ft. 3/4 conduit and drive it down next to trunk. Hammer the end flat so it will drive easily. Suck it up tight with stretch tape and leave it for a year and for get about it.

Dave

Thanks for the advice Ken. Always appreciated but I think I'm going to do what Dave said and strap it to a 10' conduit. Lucky me, I just found one in the basement at work.

Ken, I do need to buy more, but I already blew my conifer budget this year =( . I purchased an bunch of little guys and treated myself to one larger tree, 'Skylands'! (about 4') I was going to get a little one but I couldn't resist it's allure. Just planted it last week and built a giant shade rig for it as it is planted in full, blistering, all day, sun.

Thanks Whaas. Those rocks are all over my property. I can't dig a hole without hitting a few. Drop by anytime and harvest as many as you can lol. I spend a lot of time walking around the property with a pick axe in hand hunting for large rocks. Some are so heavy that I don't know how I even moved them myself. Luckily my wife pitches in to help tumble the heaviest ones up the hill. I love rocks in the garden and have almost just as much fun planting rocks as I do trees. That and the more rocks I place the less my trees get peed on by the dogs. =)

I hate to see young trees bound to stakes/conduit/whathaveyou. Talk about preventing the poor thing from developing it's own strength.

But by now, you probably have already done so. I didn't see a problem with it. Little quirks like that one has are easily overcome by time and subsequent growth.

+oM

I actually looked past the actual question!

I wouldn't do anything to the tree either. If you insist I'd take a bamboo stick as shown below. It works like a charm.

You don't have to tie the whole thing in since most the tree is actually straight.

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If you want a quick fix 1 year will resolve this issue.

On the other hand if you can wait it out and see what transpires as tom says...go for it.

Personally I like to get these things back on track as soon as possible. Controlled persuasion I call it.

Good luck,

Dave

My only problem with it leaning is that it could break in a heavy, wet snow load or ice this next winter.
If it wasn't for that, I'm sure the leader would go straight up over time and everything would be fine.
Mike

These plants are so skinny and floppy, that they're liable to be taken down by the first strong gust of wind anyway, unless you stake it, as Dave suggests.
I've had that happen to mine early last year -- nearly broke the trunk !
Once the trunk is a few inches thick, then it should be safe..... until then, stake it.

Ha ha, I love this place and everyone's great opinions. I must say, it's hard to decide. I have spent way to much time staring at it pondering back and forth now. We had a lot of wind yesterday and like Jaro said it has a skinny trunk and was doing quite a bit of flopping that concerned me. I'm leaning towards Dave's controlled persuasion. Oh no, a pun. Part of me says let it figure itself out and stop worrying about it but the perfectionist in me says that tree should have a nice straight trunk. So, on with the staking unless someone tells me of a negative outcome to staking it. =^) thanks!

Mine was, is, somewhat floppy. Perhaps because of where I planted it, perhaps because of the cultivar it is, the poor fella began to uproot itself in strong winds.

So I staked it...

To be more accurate I made a ring around the trunk a few feet up with a nylon of my wife's. That I tied off to three different places. When adjusted right it doesn't touch the trunk. BUT it provides resistance (and rubs a little, drat!) when the wind goes to blow the tree.

If it snaps a foot or two up at the single unnatural contact point so be it. When the new foliage emerges it will be behind the trunk then instead of the other way around.

My regular metasequoia never needed support. This one has considerably fewer low branches and a thinner trunk.

Our 'Ogon' had the same limpy trunk problem for a couple of years. It just didn't have enough bulk to hold itself upright, but it was mostly in the upper portion of the trunk which we couldn't adequately stake. We removed several large branches near the bottom that were out of whack with the rest of the branches, and apparently zapping too much energy from the trunk. After removing those branches, the tree straightened itself out and is now standing straight and tall.

This is the tree last summer before it straightened up.

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I would stake your tree until it develops enough girth to support itself.

garen -- where are you in southern Indiana? We're in Bloomington, and also have to dig rocks out of the ground to plant anything.

Kim

Kim, I hope you roll in with some pics this spring!

any opinion as to digging about 1/3 of the way around .. opposite the lean.. under-digging a bit.. and simply straightening the tree????

probably would have been best to do it before it broke bud ..

but w/o interference to 2/3 of the root mass.. it probably ... maybe.. might not even notice ...

or do it in fall ...

i dont know about the snow load opinion ... its nudey in winter.. ice yes.. but not snow ...

with its incredible potential ... this one does NOT belong in the weirder the better club .. do something..

i used to have a plain old green one.. that would get hit with frost.. TWICE EACH SPRING.. and rebud.. 3 times each spring.. this aint no foo foo tree ... and it ended up growing twice as fast as one uphill 50 feet away ... [i think that was a water issue .. the one downhill got more water] ... [the frost only hit the one lower also.. again.. because cold air falls to the lower area ... and there was only about 5 foot difference on the hill ?????]

ken

I'm sticking to my suggestion unless the rootball is lose in the ground. I don't see a need to stick a 1/2" pole in the root system.

Ken, the main trunk coming out of the ground is straight.

Kim, its quite possible time fixed your tree. The larger branches low on the tree actually increase caliper in the trunk. Although the energy may have been diverting up increase growth above and subsequently increase trunk caliper on the upper portion.

Ken, the main trunk coming out of the ground is straight.

==>> so what.. straighten the leader ... as the trunk thickens.. it will all visually disappear ...

ken

Most of these weak spindly trunk trees are all field grown to close together.

Pick yourself out one that has enough trunk girth to stand straight as an arrow on its own. If they don't present themselves as such don't buy. They are out there but you will have to work harder to find them.

Dave

This one never on the stake and in full sun which is a must for good development.

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I guess my point was if the trunk coming out of the ground is straight there would be no need to underdig and lean it just to straigten the top. A stint as I suggested or a stake is as simple as it gets.

Here is a buckeye I did it to. Not perfect but the wood is much more brittle/less flexible than a redwood.

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Dave, your specimen sure has nice radial branching. What do you reckon the age and width of your specimen to be?

I planted mine near Nyssa and Picea omorika 'Pendula Bruns' planning on 10' width in 20 years.

Whass,

Off the top of my head I think I purchased in in 2006.

About 6 ft. at the time. It burned severely and I thought it was a goner the first summer. It bounced back the following spring and never burned again. About 25 x 8 ft. now. Put on a good 3 ft. last year in spite of the terrible heat and drought. In my estimation a bullet proof tree once it's acclimated. Age...at least 12-14 years old.

Dave

Nice solid trunk on that redwood Dave !

I think you have a good point about the plants being "field grown too close together" -- especially for the larger nursery offers.

But I suspect that most of us buy them relatively small, to save money -- I did, anyway...

The other point about full sun is more pertinent in my case: I'm pretty sure that the partial sun that my Ogon gets is responsible for its skinny, flimsy growth so far.
My only hope is that once it grows a few more feet, it will get past one of the fixtures here (on the neighbor's property) that is shading the tree for a good part of the day.

All minor disagreements about staking aside, those are sure some excellent trees. Wish they really thrived up here. Survive yes....sometimes. But no thriving from what I've seen so far.

Ken, what happened to your green one?

+oM

I think the thin trunks are just the nature of the beast, er cultivar. From what I have seen this is more typical than burning in full sun its first year.

My Ogon was a small grafted mail order special so young the foliage was still orientated sideways when I received it like it was still a branch.

The Arbor Day 1 foot regular Metasequoia in the picture I planted grew much thicker much quicker. Notice the trunk taper.

Ogon does not seem prone to the fluted lower trunk the species gets if you leave the lower branches on. Notice the lack of thick base and thin top in the above photos.

I have witnessed the thinner trunks in photos on here and all over Ohio where someone official must love Ogon.

The kid is 35 inches tall for reference.

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I love my Ogon, just observing.

Dave, your ogon looks perfect! I'll show the picture of your tree to my tree so she will have something to strive for. =)

Whaas, Thanks for the staking idea and pic. The part of the trunk I want to bend is a little thick. I'll see if this works for me.

Kim, your my 2.5 hour away neighbor! I'm located in Patriot IN, right on the Ohio river about 40 minutes down the river from Cincinnati. The town of Patriot consists of 1 stop sign, a general store, and a post office. Funny thing, is that your Ogon was what inspired me to get mine. I was lurking through the forums a few years ago and came across a pic of your ogon steeling the show in your garden and I new I had to have one. Hope we get treated to a few pictures of your garden this spring for inspiration. =)

Garen, good luck I think it will work itself anyway you go with it.

Like I said even though the trunk is thick its very flexiable. My species plant is about the same size as yours and I did exactly what I mentioned above with this plant to. Sorry, I couldn't get outside for an upclose.

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Ooh la la, love those beds whaas. I like the far away shots so I can get a peek of more of the yard. I'm always wishing that I could peak around the corner to see more. Your property is coming along nicely.

Toronado, what a cute little living garden gnome you have. =)