tree staking question please.

Hi, I have an acer waiting to be planted. It is around 10ft tall and as it will be planted in an area that can get windy I would want to reduce the tree rocking as much as I can. It will need staking but I am unsure about which method to use. A single stake to the side, a single stake at an angle, a stake either side of the tree, three stakes ????
Gazania

 

Sorry I can't give a good answer, but just to pick up on one point. I didn't think acers liked windy spots anyway? I've heard the term 'wind burn' being applied to them, where their lives look sort of scorched.

 

Spot on clueless. A sheltered semi shaded spot is perfect for them.

 

Although I wouldn't have thought that the sorts of Acers that dislike wind would be "affordable" if bought as 10' tall plants?

Might help to know what sort of Acer it is ?

 

Hi, this isn't one of my more small leafed ornamental acers, this is a rufinerve. Nice autumn leaf colour and a nice snake bark with a shrubby appearance. It isn't directly in a wind channel but I will want to stop it rocking while it is settling in.
Gazania

 

Actually Kristen makes a good point. Is 'Acer' not just the posh word for maple, which I believe includes the likes of Sycamore along with a few UK natives?

 

Hi , I think the only true maple native to the UK is the Field Maple. 'Acer' I think refers to the genus and so the Field Maple is also known as Acer Campestre.
The naming of maples/acers looks quite complicated at times. This Acer Rufinerve I refer to is also commonly known as the redvein maple, and also is a snake barked maple, and in Japan I think it can also be refered to as the melon skinned maple ! Things could be even more complicated as the rufinerve is almost, if not actually identical to the Acer Pensylvanicum found in parts of N.America. This is also known as the moosewood or moose maple ! (isn't the internet a great way to discover info )
The reason I know I have the Rufinerve from Japan is that it was grown from seed collected there and raised in a field a couple of miles from my home. My wife, also known as she who should be obeyed , or the oracle, who I should have consulted first, (she says) tells me we were advised to use an angled stake when we picked the tree up ! Blimey
Gazania, from the asteraceae family and sub family cichorioideae, part of the arctotideae tribe, also known as Harry.

 

Regarding staking there's some excellent advice in an article to which Kristen posted a link in another thread. You'll find the article here -

http://www.puyallup.wsu.edu/~linda chalker-scott/horticultural myths_files/Myths/Staking.pdf

 

Now that's an excellent article. Thanks Dave.

 

Except that I'm increasingly wondering about the wisdom of what Linda Chalker-Scott writes ... I don't doubt her academic qualifications and expertise, its the unanswered questions that I need answers to which I think means that the advice she gives is not suited for all situations in the "blanket advice" style that she presents it.

For a prized tree, of decent size, I would use two stakes, either side, and a figure-of-eight arrangement to tie the tree to the stakes.

For a more economy solution a single stake, planted in the direction of the prevailing wind (i.e. the tree pulls against the stake in a prevailing wind, rather than trying to push against it).

Make sure to check that the ties are not strangling the tree each season.

A stake at 45-degrees, and tied where it intersects the tree, will do, but in my experience this then creates an annoyance where the stake meets the ground, quite a long way away from the trunk, with mowing and tripping-over-it etc and tends to mean that the plant is secured at a lower height (or you have to pay more for a longer stake). It does, however, avoid puncturing the rootball, but if you put the stake in when you put the plant in the hole then you can avoid the rootball anyway [particularly if planting bare-rooted] - so perhaps most handy for staking a tree that is already planted and you can't see where the roots extend.

 

The first method is what the Landscape Architect's were advising at the last Practice I worked for, with the stakes (as far as I remember) only about one third of the tree height to allow the upper stem to flex.

The second method is what I generally use for my apples, but whilst on a course an apple grower who plants much smaller trees recommended using both one vertical and one 45 degree raking support. But that was North Devon.

 

Perhaps best way to think of it is that what the stake is doing is to stop the roots moving, rather than to stop the stem / top moving

If the roots rock about they can't grow into the surrounding soil to form the new anchor. My instinct says that tying lower down allows more "fulcrum" energy to be transmitted to the rootball allowing more root movement. But its only a thought, and practice may be different.

 

I did ask about that (wind rock) when the specification was changed from a single, tall stake to two lower stakes, but was told that the trees being supported in this 'new' way were no longer susceptible to attack by the yob element, and if they couldn't rock them, how could a bit of wind?

 

Is "A real yob wind" going to be the new Hip phrase this Autumn then? I'd pay good money to be one new phrase ahead of my teenage kids !