Any Tree experts in the house?

[Mulberry View]

We've suffered some tree damage during the recent winds, as I guess was inevitable.

 

One of the 'victims' is a very unusual Cercis, or Judas Tree as is it commonly known. Does anyone know anything about them?

 

It was lost in the middle of a very densely overgrown area of my garden, it grew very leggy due to it's lack of light. Unfazed, during the Spring it flourished into a mass of beautiful pink flowers, similar in appearance to a Cherry Blossom, but far longer lasting. The flowers dropped off in time and the tree went on to produce reddish brown seed pods, which are still present. It has 3 large trunks at ground level, but each is over a foot in diameter, they reach outwards and upwards, each splitting off two or three times. The result is a tree that is probably 30ft high, but probably also at least 30ft wide. For this reason, the limbs are at great risk. The branches seem to have a tendency to split in a fairly unique way too, making them weak.

 

The recent storm torn off one of the long limbs to a point where it came to rest on an adjoining tree, it hasn't fully detached. This particular limb is on the same trunk as another that has woven it's way across 4 or 5 adjoining Conifers. I'd ultimately like to remove the Conifers, so this particular part of the tree was in debate anyway.

 

I've attached a video, whilst it shows the damage, doesn't do the tree justice. It's too good to lose. I worry that if we cut it back too hard, we'll kill it, or imbalance it. Anyone got any specialist knowledge? *Hit 'full screen' on the vid, it seems to play in better proportions due to my vertical filming aspect.

 

 

 

Edited September 28, 2020 by christianbeccy

[scottishjohn]

not much of an option  there 

you need to remove that limb  for sure  pretty sure there are things you can paint on wounds like that to stop infection getting 

 and if you have others branchs as  long --time to trim them back so it don,t happen again

[Ralph]

They are fairly hardy trees and you have a bit of bark still attached there so you could try and treat it like a graft, depending on the weight of the limb you may be ok.  You need to tape the limb back in place and seal the wound with wax. Once you see leaves coming back next year and there is no sign of disease on the wound you cant try taking off the tape and wax.

 

Google grafting a tree limb and you should get some more advice.

[PeterW]

That needs a lot of work. It’s been left too long, and you need to do some restorative work to it in the autumn and get some of the weight off all of the limbs. 
 

You can see previous damage to the left side - that will not heal nor will it re-bind as it’s essentially the heart that is visible. Suggest you either get a tree surgeon in, or carefully cut back from the end in 2ft sections by hand, watch it for springing back