Rewilding My Lot

Last week we had a few hours of extremely high winds (our local newspaper said 70mph), which was apparently enough to tear a split in a fork near the top of my Desert Willow tree. This tree does move more than others in the wind (one of the reasons I like it), and it must have really been thrashing around on that day.

When I discovered the damage a couple of days later, clearly the priority was to do something to take the strain off the split to stop it progressing further. So the immediate short-term action was to close the wound with a zip tie and to tie the branches of the fork together with a bandana to close the split further and take strain off the zip tie.

Then I had to decide what to do as a long-term strategy, so I reached out to the Growing Texas Natives community on Facebook, and they had some great suggestions.

In general, there were two recommended strategies: (1) Cut the branch below the split and let the tree develop a new shape, or (2) Close the split together with tape or a bolt, with or without some healing substance inside the split.

This tree is only 6 feet tall and pruning it below the split would remove about a quarter of its bulk and 1-2 feet of height. I’d prefer to try to heal the split, and only if that doesn’t work would I cut the damaged branch away. I have no doubt that the tree would recover from such a severe pruning, but it would set the overall growth back by a year or two.

The broken branch is only about 1 inch in diameter, and so I thought that was too small for the bolt approach, and tape would be a better option. I also liked the idea of putting rooting powder (used in grafting as well) inside the split. So I acquired supplies and got to work.

Six days after the original damage and four days after the interim binding, I cut the zip tie off and untied the bandana. I mixed a small amount of rooting powder into a paste and applied it to the broken surface with a thin piece of mulch so that I could get into the crack without pulling the split apart. Then I tied the fork together with a fresh bandana, and finally wrapped the split with PVC garden tape that will stretch as the tree grows.

My plan is to leave the tree with these props (the tape and bandana) in place for several months until the winter. At that point I’ll unwrap it so see how things are doing, and then re-bandage for another 6 months or so.