Very tall oaks with short horizontal branches

ryseryse_2004

9 years ago

We have just moved to a home with wooded acreage in SW Tennessee. The woods are full of Oak and Pine trees. The area around the house has some trees but they are tall and straight but have very short branches. What would cause this? I can understand that in the wooded with trees so close together that they couldn't branch out but these trees are well spaced. Is the clay too constricting for the roots?

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Comments (12)

wisconsitom
9 years ago
Impossible to answer without knowing history of site. No, presence of clay in soil would not have that effect. Was site logged somewhere in past ten years (or more)? Some species have different growth forms, regardless of site factors.

Can you dig into the history?

+oM
bengz6westmd
9 years ago
Sometimes that can happen if the oaks grew up in a crowded environment, but later the competing trees were removed or died. Or maybe the oaks were chopped on by chainsaws.
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You could do some mulching with shredded fall leaves, get the worms to work that available organic material into the clay for you. My Kowaltzia too about 2years to settle in and bloom WELL on the third spring after planting. Not sure of my type, no name on it anymore, but I think an old variety because of size. It was a larger plant to start, maybe waist high in the pot. It did send up new shoots, gained a LOT in height in my waiting time. Mine doesn't like being pruned much, sends off all kinds of odd side shoots when I removed the branch tips. Likes to be growing tall and gracefully bending a little at the top. I ended up pruing those distorted branches from original growth off to the ground. Now most of the growth is straighter upward, natural branching is much more attractive. This is a very nice shrub for me, great flowering, lasts a couple weeks. Looks like a fountain of pink. Not a small shrub, but that is OK. Even with no flowers it has a nice shape, and has a short season of fall color on the leaves. I throw in shredded leaves when planting in fall, because my clay dirt can get real solid. These are Oak leaves, which hold their shape well even soaking wet. Mulching with the leaves does seem to get my dirt "softer" as the worms come to eat leaves as time goes along. Clay mixed with organic things, makes great garden beds. Good luck with your shrub, hope it does as well for you as mine has.
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If they planted this tree so deep, did they plant the other two red oaks the same depth? If so, seems like you should expose the root flare on those other two, also. Since Your tree was first planted large as you discribed, than it most likely was a field grown, B & B. Many times I have seem such trees with, even in the wrapped up root ball stage, covered at least 2 to 3 inches of dirt higher than the rootflare. And sometimes with a lot of feeder roots tangled together in that excessively high dirt. If those who planted your tree just dropped the root ball into the planting hole and only pushed the burlap down below grade level, I mean without first finding the root flare of that tree, it is not to difficult of a stretch to begin wondering if they also failed to remove the wire basket, or other such thing that is often used when growers dig up and B & B their field grown trees. Also if on this struggling tree the planters did not expose the rootflare and then plant it properly, it is very likely that they did not investigate to see if and correct if possible or cull out any of these three trees that might have had circling roots. Most times, field grown trees do not have as much problems encoutering circling roots, but that still does not ensure all those three trees at one point or other in their training time handling has not been exposed to conditions which could have presented circling roots problems. So, yes file a complant with your contractor and insist that he properly replace the trees or that he returns your money and removes the tree. Then find a quality nursery who will provide and properly plant a good tree for you. You might also consider including in your complaint the other two trees they planted, if you can clearly see that they planted them the exact same way this struggling tree was planted.
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It seems you've buried your rose deep, which is good in your zone. In order to tell if that cane is root stock or not you would have to dig down around the rose to see where the canes are originating from. This is a picture that should help you decide if you have a grafted rose that is sending up shoots from below the graft or not. This one has that one odd off shoot (sigh...DA roses aren't the quality they used to be) but for your purposes any thing below the knobby part where all the green canes are going up from is the root stock rose. If your 10 foot wonder cane is coming out from below that knob it's root stock. If that's the case you want to destroy the cane right at the place where it is coming out. Don't just prune it off, that only encourages it to grow more. You want to rip it off and damage/destroy the growth node at that point so it won't regrow. If the cane is growing from above the graft it's probably just starting to get it's legs and is putting out good strong new growth. That's a good thing and means it's happy, leave it alone. If it is a David Austin rose, and it does look like one, a lot of those will climb if you let them. I see you have a small trellis behind it. That may have encouraged the rose to send out that long cane. Offering support to a rose can do that sometimes. If you don't want it to climb then simply keep it pruned to the height you want and it should bush out more then. You can usually do that as you dead head the rose. Just prune deeper than just below the spent bloom at that time and it should keep it more in the size you prefer. BUT...if a rose really is a climber and wants to grow that way all that pruning may make it an unhappy rose and it won't grow or preform well for you. Some random thoughts. Evergreens have shallow and very invasive root systems. They'll suck the life out of any soil around them. Besides that it's probably throwing some good shade on the rose that wants lots of sun. Lack of sufficient sun can cause a rose to grow but not bloom. And can cause a rose to throw up a long cane seeking sunlight. If you like the rose and want to keep it either move the rose to a better spot or get rid of the evergreens. Just a very wild guess but it looks a little like my Golden Celebration to me but if it really is more apricot than yellow then maybe it could be Ambridge Rose?
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ryseryse_2004
Original Author
9 years ago
The house was built here 15 years ago. If there was logging or if trees were removed, there aren't enough stumps for that to have been a factor. It certainly would make sense that the trees were close together and the area was logged at one time. I will have to check with people who have lived around here for a long time.
ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
9 years ago
a pic might help ...

w/o such.. i would guess the trees are competing for sunshine.. by growing straight up .... wasting no energy spreading leaves [which would be on the branches that are missing] .. which would not thrive under the canopy in full shade ..

most trees are are nudey inside ... the outer canopy shading out the interior ...

the only difference here.. is that the whole group.. the forest .... is acting as one organism ...

pic???

ken
Embothrium
9 years ago
Are we sure the short-branched ones are oaks, and not some other kind of tree entirely?
rhizo_1 (North AL) zone 7
9 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
Pictures are absolutely required.

I'm guessing epicormic growth as a result of severe construction damage. I've seen it zillions of times, when the crappy developers attempt to preserve a few tree trunks on lots so that that they can market them as 'wooded'.
ryseryse_2004
Original Author
9 years ago
Here are the pictures,
bengz6westmd
9 years ago
Middle pic looks like there may very well have been surrounding trees at one time that were later removed. Top & bottom pic looks like typical competition keeping them relatively narrow.
ctnchpr
9 years ago
What rhizo said. Looks like a contractor cleared the lot and left only enough trees to qualify it as "wooded".
wisconsitom
9 years ago
They're not even especially "narrow", just what's left after somebody "improves" a lot for human use. It's not really a woods anymore. so many travesties in the name of "wooded lots".

+oM
ryseryse_2004
Original Author
9 years ago
We have 13 acres -- most of it is really wooded but the 2 to 3 acres up near the road where the house sits are where the trees are sparse. It does sound like that is what happened but the house was built 15 years ago and the trees don't look all that old.
krnuttle
9 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
At the Steel historic home site in southern Indiana, that are trees that have no branches like your's, only the are much bigger trees, It has been nearly 100 years since the woods was cleared leaving the existing tree.

Point being these old tree, that started their growth in a forest, grew up tall and slim as described above. Even after all of that time of being free of all of the other trees, they still are tall with few branches.

Very tall oaks with short horizontal branches

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wisconsitom

bengz6westmd

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Very tall oaks with short horizontal branches

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