Floss silk trees

[Roberta]

I bought another, larger floss silk tree about 2' high (yes, I REALLY like these trees!) from a grower in Florida and it's growing like a weed. Question: I noticed that the shipper cut the trunk once before I received it because it was growing so fast - should I pinch the branches to make it fuller as it grows, or should I let it do its thing?

Thanks very much,
Roberta

 

[sonny]

You bought the tree from Fl. ? No the shipper should not cut it. Yes it will make the sticker tree grow fuller but will only hurt it. I would not pinch the branches. unless you are not going to let them darn sticker trees , that do look beatiful but are missable to climb to grow large.

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

A small full looking tree has very poor structure once it gets big.

The perfect small tree looks like Charlie Browns Christmas tree. Slender trunk and a few branches.

 

[Roberta]

Floss silk tree

John, do you agree that the tree trunk shouldn't have been cut?

Roberta

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

It might have been a poor looking tree, or damaged and the grower decided to cut it back to "start over". Like you tried with the first one. Perfectly acceptable practice.

If the cut the tips to make it bushy, yes I rant and rave every time I see it. This is the nursery industries responce to the uninformed consumers buying small bushy trees. Instead of educating, they give what the customer thinks they want.

5 years down th raod the arborist has to remove 3 times what would have been taken if the tree was trained properly.

I'm not a single leader fanatic, but I want to remove poor unions as soon as possible. And close branch groupings.

Cut off all the low branches Mike?