Y Crotched Trees

The information about the tree with the Y crotch brought back memories of a huge elm tree we had in our back yard when we lived in Vallejo many years ago.  This particular elm had been left to grow so that it had developed two opposing, very thick and heavy branches that started to split the tree down the center.  The elm tree was oozing sap and looked like it would indeed succumb.  The tree was so large and beautiful and provided such nice shade we hated to loose it.  We had a tree surgeon come and he trimmed the two branches back very severely.  Then he drilled and inserted a wire straight through both branches and wired them one to the other.  When the surgeon was done the tree looked like a very poor specimen indeed - but the tree never split down the center and it eventually recovered - of course the branch structure was never the same as before but it did provide the needed shade we desired in the back yard. 
 
When a tree is young, if you can prevent the tree from developing two opposing branches with a deep Y crotch, you are preventing problems for the tree in the future.  As in the case of the elm tree we had - if you inherit a tree with this type of branch structure, you can always have an arborist trim the tree creatively to reduce the leaf and smaller branch load on each side of the tree.  This solution would have been more esthetically pleasing to our elm than the surgery that was performed but at the time the drastic measure was necessary to prevent the immediate demise of the tree altogether. 
 
Linda Starr
Springville Gardens
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