plant it.. properly.. see link ...

lets talk about transforming it... after it blooms next season ...

turn it about 90 degrees ... and the plant will look a lot better.. immediately ... insure that view is set according to where you will view it from the most ...

and in the mean time.. google: rejuvenation pruning of flowering shrubs .... to get a flavor of what we will contemplate next year ...

you are verging on 'instant gratification' ... i am focusing on proper planting and getting it to live for the first year ... shape will come later..

ken

ps: you can set it in the hole.. slightly askew.. to insure both leaders are bolt upright ... but insure proper planting depth ... like if you put a golf ball on the right side of the pot in the pic.. under the pot .... bingo bango.. trunks upright.. plant it that way.. w/o the golf ball ... lol ...

Here is a link that might be useful: llink

I'm with you in the short term, rotating it to present it's best side and tilting in the hole to straighten. But I did as you suggested and googled rejuvenation pruning... Sounds pretty drastic. What would be the reasoning behind doing something like that?

If a shrub has gotten totally out of control, usually from neglect, it will need to be radically pruned to get back into shape, or if the shrub has been damaged. with major limb loss, it will need to be reshaped.

it would regenerate it.. over two or three years ...

into a natural form ...

rather than your.. sorry.. ugly form ...

but plant it.. give it until next fall to grow some roots with the leaves there ... then we can discuss how you want to shape it over the years ...

never really any hurry with trees and shrubs ... you can always cut later... but you cant ever glue or staple them back on ...

i would guess... your tree was row grown... and it was growing away from a plant to close to its left... if that were true... it took some severe root pruning.. on digging it up ... and stuffing into that small pot ....

in the alternative... its been in that pot forever ... and close to other pots ....

ken

It was definitely the latter. It was crowded in with a bunch of others that the nursery lady said were all long overdue for moving up to bigger pots.

Long term, I know we want more of a tree form than a shrub form. Will find a new location (wanted one for a specimen in the front yard, but given it's sorry state, I will have to rethink that idea) and see how it does for a year or so.

Thanks for the guidance.

Bringing up this scraggly tree again... It seems to be doing very well. It flowered very nicely- was covered in blooms pretty much everywhere you see leaves in the pic above. The flowers are almost gone now. Would this be the time to prune, or should I give it more time to settle in? If I'm going to prune for a better shape, what should I cut?

Give it til fall...at least.

tj

The presence of light, hitting all sides of the plant, very soon, is going to radically alter and improve this plant's balance and appearance. I'd not be stressed out at all about it at this time. By doing nothing, or very close to nothing, you will get the results you're after.

+om

Update-

After almost two years in the ground, the tree has filled out some. It is still lopsided, but not as drastically misshapen as before. But this year it did not flower. Thoughts?

Flowering may be sporadic the first couple of years as well as any of a number of environmental factors. Didn't you folks have some late freezes this year?

tj

FYI, now is the time to think about pruning...or rather, this Fall.

don't go too drastic, you can completely ruin the tree. plant it and tilt it like a 90 degree angle like suggested above and see how it looks by next spring. in the fall it wouldn't hurt to trim about 3 inches off of every branch to encourage some new growth

I would love an update on this please :)

Get it out of that tiny pot, spread the roots out at planting. Fertilize (if needed), mulch and water to encourage growth, watch it fill in and balance itself on its own.

Roxana- I ended up cutting it back to just its two main trunks about 2 feet from the ground in fall 2016. It is growing nicely, from those two trunks into a nice full tree. Probably about 8 feet tall now. It still hasn’t flowered. I’m hoping to see some blooms next year

American service berry sets flower in July for the following year, according to my research about my crooked little tree. So don’t wait until fall to shape it or you’re cutting off the flowers. Prune root suckers and crossed branches -all heavy pruning- in late winter to early spring before leaves, is what I found. Shape the canopy between April and July... fruit normally ripens in June so I think I’ll be aiming for late June shaping myself.