Willow tree

I have a willow tree in my front garden, it grows very well, too well sometimes. It's quite tall but I have a problem with the wind and the tree. When we got the strong winds earlier in june it actually bent the tree - the whole of the tree including the trunk went over to about 60 deg from upright. We had to cut some of the branches off as they'd been very damaged and so cutting them off was better for the tree. So now my tree is on an angle what do I do with it? It can't be pushed to make it stand up more and I'm a new gardener so any advice would be extreemly helpful to me as if we get some high winds I'm worried that it will happen again as the tree is lopsided now.

 

I haven't seen the tree, but perhaps with a bit of careful strategic pruning, you could encourage the tree back into a more uniformed shape.
Pruning to shape in other words.

 

I'm going to try to take a picture of it perhaps it'll give you more of an idea. You'll have to excuse the state of the garden around it though as I've only just got into gardening and it's a daunting task oto tackle all the garden with a toddler and dog in tow.

 

Is it the whole tree which is bent over or the trunk itself? We had two trees blown over by the gales early this month and managed to stand them upright again and they are heavily staked until the roots re-attach temselves to the soil.

 

Hi Katherna. Without pics I can only assume that your tree has suffered from windthrow (windblow) where the strong gales heave the tree over, including the root plate. To stop any further lean you'd benefit from removing as much weight as possible from the crown and using props to support the tree. Trying to push the tree upright can cause further damage to the remaining roots and is not always the best option.

 

Yes the whole thing is at an angle, so really I'd need to take the top off it as well to help, then try to get it more or less upright? I know it'll sprout really low down as the branches that we cut off it have started to get new growth on them.

 

Thats how it's leaning. Hope this helps, in the pic it doesn't seem to be leaning over too much but if you look at the brickwork behind you can see I'm probably leaning too, lol. As you can see it's had some emergency sawing as the branches were broken.