Chester, my advice is to wait and see what the spring/next year brings - it may be fine and may not, but dealing with it right now is not necessary - except for blocking the deer's access. If the trunk dies back, you may be able to get a better tree/clump by cutting that trunk to the ground, and letting one of the subsequent sprouts become a new trunk, rubbing off the rest or the sprouts - I can almost guarantee that you will get sprouts from the roots! One of the existing, subordinate trunks can become the new main trunk. That way, you will start with a "clean" trunk, rather than one with an obvious crook/jog in it where a new leader sprouted on the trunk, and grew upward, or an existing branch started growing more vertically than horizontally. You may be lucky, and there may not be too obvious a difference - and in a few years, it won't show much at all, if any. In which case, you need to do nothing except make sure that only one branch becomes the new leader - multiple leaders are not a good idea.

Oh, my goodness, these are soooo Spectacular!!! Boxo! whoop-whoop hoooray! The third bouquet I can see my FAVORITE TOP ONES really Rising Up - Sunset Celebration and Chicago Peace doing their classic Spirals!!! But the King AD is at the 2nd bouquet, Return of the King, just like a Tolkien Tale. Just GORGEOUS! First bouquet is Easy on the eyes (cheeery LE and EG), reminds me that fall is just around the corner!! My oh my that is some great purple variations that the Phlox are adding to the Ballet of colors! We still have bad drought over here Boxo. So things might be very quiet on the forum. But my Don Juan is going gangbusters with blooms and so was Broceliande before I left, but I'm too burnt out from trying to do photos for the roses. I have about 3000+ Europe photos to sift through and jet lag to the max! The cities are sparkling and soooo clean over there, pristine. Highways not a single speck of trash, not even a cigarette butt you can find. Buildings are sooo historical filled with beauty. I'll be away from forums for quite awhile, a lot! of chaos on my end (some of it not good) but brother-funded vacation helps and thank goodness for Jim pulling me back from time-to-time....Hugs and will write later on your future threads.

Mine are just like your first picture today. Still peeking out when i came in, How long do they do that before they go? I thought they'd be gone today, but there is still at least one in there, I had 5 (I think)I wish I had seen at least one go, but I didn't, and probablyby the time I get home tomorrow nite from work, they'll be gone. Do I take the nest out, same as Bluebirds?

Debbie I don't know if they nest in Texas or not. I know they don't in GA. Try looking on Cornell's bird site. They have maps of migration and nesting etc. I just looked the answer is no - just migration. Check out the link anyway it is really cool. Cathy Here is a link that might be useful: cornell