Greenville SC here... I feel your pain, but differently, I was in the garden laying out the drip irrigation system when the rain came howling in, my wife opened up the window and told my son and I hail was forecasted. At that moment I looked at my 11 year old son who is my co-gardener and in charge of the squash and hot peppers and at the 800+ cherry tomatoes on my 2 plants, the 4 romas and beautiful squash plants(3 a day easily) and massive amounts of hot peppers and i called him on his dedication to maintaining the garden. Without even a blink he answered "what do i need to do" for 15-20 minutes we both sat in the hail holding a tarp tight over the garden, in shorts and t-shirts, he had my panama hat on which protected his head, however he took a beating and never flinched once. When it was over the only damage was that the zuke leaves had some holes torn in them and about 50 cherries got knocked off, all in all a great save. My poor son looked like he got stung be 200 bees, you could count every hail stone that hit his body. I told him I would understand if he went inside but he said not after all the hard work we put in, he knew i loved my garden and his mom loved the zukes and maters. I had never been more proud of him at any other moment in his entire life, I calculated the cost of replanting the garden and figured it to be the cost of a new bicycle, which i took him out the next day to buy. I will never forget watching him on the couch with his eyes misting from the pain and when asked if he was okay, he said it hurt be he would get over it. That night we harvested some zukes, fried them up with onions and olive oil and ate a toast to the garden we both saved that day. I have a feeling your hail was worse than mine granite. condolences. gg

I'd agree w/Brandon -- good chance it's rootbound. First thing to do is to stake it -- additional rocking will only break more roots. Rootbound stuff has affected me too. Options are limited as the tree gets bigger. I have helped a couple rootbound trees (that I didn't but should've corrected at planting) that are now firmly anchored. But the first one I worked on, I killed, so be careful. Remove as much soil as possible around the trunk-base. Use your fingers or a small digging tool (even a toothbrush), carefully trying to limit damage to roots. A stream of hose water will help. Goal is to try exposing the root collar. If you do, you should see any badly circling and/or overlapping roots. Try to cut the most offensive ones, but too much cutting here can kill the patient. Another thing to try in addition to or by itself is to take a long knife & make deep as possible cuts thru the root-mass directly outward from the trunk, from within a half-inch from the trunk to at least just past the original pot diameter. Make 4 to 6 equi-distantly spaced cuts around & radiating out away from the trunk. This should slice thru at least some the the offending roots. A serrated knife is best since you'll prb'ly have to do some "sawing" to get thru the soil/roots. And your knife'll be dulled by the abuse.

My sweet almond verbana tree (approx. 12 feet tall) was knocked down and when it fell, it took out part of our fence. My arbor was also blown a few feet away and when it fell to the ground it snapped my honey bell tangelo in half. Tha is the worst that happen and a consider myself lucky because I know there were some twisters a few miles away in the area. Funny thing is no one else around us had any damage. My hubby and I were able to use a truck and pull the verbana tree back up. We staked it in the ground and my fingers are crossed that it will live. We took a video of us pulling the tree back up. I will try to post a link to it a bit later.

Noclue Thanks it was a nasty one. Peg Guess I better get use to it as we have basically the same forecast for the next couple of days :( Dave I know what your saying, many people here without power. Trees down. Looks like another round tonight, just hoping it wont be as severe. Hope you get your power back soon!!!! Stuart your spot on. We normally have thunderstorms fueled by heat and humidity when its this warm out, but lately they have been much more intense. And they are lasting alot longer. Weatherman just said we have a chance all week for storms with temps being in the mid to upper 90s all week. Scarey too think it would repeat all week. The winds are the worst I have seen for some time. We do get tropical storms here and hurricanes, but lately we have strong winds with normal thunderstorms. Makes me wonder!!!!! Jackie