It looks good to me. I put one in a couple of years ago and I picked it out myself and yours looks better than the one I put in. The one I put in had two leaders which started about two feet from the ground. After the first year I cut one out.

I would advise to let it develop on its own. This plant has no structural problems. Why create them? The minor squiggles in the main stem now will mean nothing ultimately. And tying a stick to the stem and attempting to "straighten" will lead to a weak, floppy plant that can't hold itself up.

I'm having to repeat myself (on this forum) lately about young trees with minor curves in the trunk. If people only understood how trees grow, they wouldn't be worried about this. I'll spare you the details now-unless you want them-but there is simply no problem here.

I don't believe it is a 'Marilyn', maackia. At least, if it is, it wasn't specified.

Thanks, all. This makes me so happy. I was so excited to get this tree, so I am glad it looks to be doing well.

Wisconsitom, great info, thanks. It always made sense to me to let trees grow on their own, but I've read conflicting advice. If you have time and care to share more, I would love to read what you've got about the growth of trees.

There are definitely reasons to intervene in a young tree's structure. I'm not at all saying never do anything. Heck, I myself have probably pruned tens or even hundreds of thousands of trees in my time. But in this case-and others like it-it may be helpful to realize the two great factors controlling where and how trees grow; First is phototropism, the tendency for plants to grow towards the light source, which in the great outdoors is, of course, the sun. So, you will see trees along rivers bending way out to grow where there's sunlight. Why don't these trees-trees with actual very "crooked" trunks-fall over? Because of the adjustments they make to gravity. It's unnatural for a tree to not simply grow straight up, so when the first force-phototropism causes them to do so, they have to make adjustments. These adjustments consist of the formation of a different wood type-reaction wood-which for the sake of brevity enables the plant to hold itself up.

The second factor you may want to investigate is the way trees grow; If you can, imagine (under the bark) a new tree growing over the "old" tree each growing season, like a kid's toy where one piece nests inside the other. Because of this, new wood layers are under no obligation to retain that squiggle. They will, in time, bury that business deep inside. I'ma leave it there for now or I'll end up writing another book. But hopefully this makes some sense. And best of all for me in this thread-I got to use the word squiggle, repeatedly!

These can get a bit wide with age. I would plant it a little further from the driveway.

Very interesting, thank you, wisconsitom!

"(Please overlook the car- it's a project of my husband's. )"

LOL. Funny aside.

The tree is just fine.