Leggy Rowan

[JBLC]

Hello, first post here so hopefully I've put it in the right place.

I bought and planted this Rowan tree in late September last year. It was from a garden centre and has spent too long in a small pot so it's very tall and thin and the branches all seem to be too thin. None of it seems able to support it's own weight with the main part of the tree leaning over to one side and the branches seem to sag down a bit.

It seems healthy enough and new buds & leaves are being produced.

Does it need to be pruned? If so where please?

Thanks 

[scbk]

58 minutes ago, Dan Maynard said:

I was wondering about tying it to straighten, sure I've seen it in my pruning book.

I borrowed a book on tree pruning from the local library, but the last 1/3 had been removed.

[Mesterh]

1 hour ago, Dan Maynard said:

I was wondering about tying it to straighten, sure I've seen it in my pruning book.

With a couple of decent bamboo poles its got to worth a try. If not then he could just prune it.

 

[sime42]

1 hour ago, Dan Maynard said:

I was wondering about tying it to straighten, sure I've seen it in my pruning book.

 

I think it works, to my surprise. I tried it with a young Hawthorne a few years ago, 1"- 2" dia. I used a length of roofing batten and kept it on a couple of years. When I took it off the trunk remained straight, which I wasn't quite expecting.

 

 

[JBLC]

I decided to give a 3.6m roofing batten a go. 

Some of the branches are bowing down under the weight of the berries that are forming.

[Dan Maynard]

2 hours ago, JBLC said:

I decided to give a 3.6m roofing batten a go. 

Some of the branches are bowing down under the weight of the berries that are forming.

Cool, that'll be interesting to see how it goes - do please report back in a year or two.

[JBLC]

I will. Thanks for everyone's comments 

[sime42]

2 hours ago, JBLC said:

I decided to give a 3.6m roofing batten a go. 

Some of the branches are bowing down under the weight of the berries that are forming.

 

Nice one. Do make sure to protect the bark from abrasion at points where it touches the batten, if there's any kind of relative movement. The latter will be a lot rougher and tougher than the former.