Hi everyone, I will try to attach a picture to this post, and here is my situation: I have a M.P. tree that is about twenty years old and was about ten feet tall. Last year someone broke off and stole the top two feet of it. It is now starting to grow several leaders at the injury, but I want to train it back into a single trunk specimen both for looks and because in my experience trees with split leaders occasionally break off there. I am thinking of pruning back all but one of the new buds, and then using a stick and twine to train the remaining one vertical. This will still result in a significant offset and possibly weak point in the trunk. I am hoping for input on this idea, and other suggestions for dealing with this trouble. Thanks.
That vandalism totally sucks. How are your winds off the water? If they are notably windy and lashing, I'd avoid selecting the bud that is most directly that side. Other than that, pick the strongest growth that is also low down on the top. So the one closest to the camera looks as if it is higher than the others and not the best choice. Maybe it will be the one to the left. You don't want it so high on that stub that drying or insect damage will be likely, but down where there is solid cambium all the way around. Too low and the remaining stub will control the angle of growth of your selected bud to some extent. If there is some greenness left of that stub, as in the growth is only a year or so old, see if it's flexible enough that you can wire it aslant as a bonsai type training to make it secondary to your chosen bud.
Thanks for the tips. I hadn't thought about using a more lower bud, so I am glad you suggested it, as I see that it makes sense. I may also try to train the other buds outward as branches rather than cutting them back. There isn't a lot of wind on the tree as it is somewhat protected by the house and some nearby cedars (actually Thuja), and I am a few miles inland from the ocean. So do you have these trees in Florida?
You're lucky that Monkey-puzzle is exceptionally good at sorting itself out - there's every chance that just one of the sprouts will develop as a new trunk (I suspect it'll be the shoot at the back right in the 2nd pic), and the rest will turn into branches, without any need to do any pruning or shaping at all. If there are still two (or more) erect new stems at the end of the year, prune off the less erect of them. As an aside - Monkey-puzzle (Araucaria araucana) doesn't grow in Florida, it can't cope with the summer heat / humidity combination there. What Thanrose will have seen are its close relatives Bunya (Araucaria bidwillii) and maybe Parana Araucaria (Araucaria angustifolia).
Thanks Michael! Good to know. I'll have to take a closer look at the few Araucaria genus that I've seen. The one in Mead Botanical Gardens in Winter Park is not identified on their site as anything other than monkey-puzzle tree, and the one in Saul's yard (the link above) looks to be the same: Bunya, Araucaria bidwillii.
From there Not true; Bunya cones drop whole and are dangerous, but Monkey-puzzle cones break up on the tree and just drop a harmless shower of loose seeds. Also an excruciatingly bad Latin pronunciation guide! And - arrrrgh!! Completely wrong! Not in the pine family (Pinaceae) at all, but the Araucaria family (Araucariaceae)
Ooops! My bad. Just trying to find a photo of a locally grown Bunya and was not in luck. There are more than just the ones in Saul's yard and at Mead Gardens, but I'm sure you are correct. Of course, people have Cook pine here, Araucaria columnaris, which they usually believe to be A. heterophylla. Sad specimens though.
Here is what the tree looks like four or five years later. I had trouble getting a good picture of the whole tree because of the distracting backgrounds, but you may be able to see the slight jog in the trunk about 2/3 of the way up where it was severed. I trained one of the buds upwards and pruned off the others, and continued to pinch off new buds that came along in the wrong place over the last couple years. I finally took off the splint this past summer and with luck the tree is "out of the woods" so far as vandalism is concerned.
I love it when people come back to update their story. Thanks for posting this. It looks like you've done a good job and the tree is doing very well.