Cuttings: Trees at stake
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Your support makes all the difference.MODERN thinking on the staking of trees suggests the stake should not be so tall as to stop entirely the movement of the tree. The theory - and it works - is that the movement of the crown is transmitted to the roots and encourages them to develop more quickly, in order to provide adequate support. A stake about knee-high works perfectly on slender, feathered trees up to 6ft or 7ft tall. They learn to fend for themselves very quickly.
But if a nursery has grown a mop-headed half-standard tree - a scarlet thorn, perhaps, or a crab apple - it is going to catch a lot of wind at the top. Too low a stake will allow it to lash around cruelly. Heavy-headed young trees are better given the old-fashioned taller stake, coming almost to the top of the cleared stem.
Recently I saw a tall group of young alders nicely established on 6ft stakes. They would have made good, but for an expert who decided the stakes were too tall. Fashionable, knee-high stakes were immediately introduced and in the next decent wind every tree blew down.
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