I planted a bare root Nectarine last winter (Double Delight Nectarine, Citation rootstock).

I wanted to prune this into a central leader structure. For this tree, appearance is at least as important as harvest, and I wanted an ornamental tree shape rather than an orchard tree shape.

Although the tree generally grew well this year, the central leader did not thrive, and now I just have low laterals on a short trunk. (See pic)

Is there a way that I can prune this young tree convince it to produce a central leader again and get more of an upright structure?

(I had something similar happen to a fig tree - an animal or toddler snapped off the central leader, and try as I might I was never able to re-establish the main trunk and it just kept producing more and more lateral-ish branches. It is happy, healthy and productive, but I call it my fig bush rather than my fig tree.)

Thanks for any advice!

Lee

It looks like there is a somewhat vertical branch coming off the second lateral just to the right of the main trunk. The second photo shows that it is not really that vertical, and pretty far from the main trunk.

There is a little vertical twig at the top of the trunk, but it did not thrive and now is fully dead.

I wanted to play with Photoshop so I removed the background in one pic.