Nice single leader.

Dax/The Captain. lol

Boy are you lucky! It's beautiful.

My October Glory, which has been in the ground 4 years and is about 20' tall? It's never been anything but unenthusiastic, kind-of yellow. :(

Christine

Christine,

Could you give me a rough estimate on your October Glory's width at the four year mark?

I didn't think mine would change into that fabulous red. It seemed to be taking so long. Then finally, the last week of October it showed signs of its "Glory." I'm thinking of changing its name to November Glory, at least for around here.

Late is typical. So is normal wide crown in open position, yours so far looks like somebody shortened all the branches to give it an abnormal shape.

4 years with nothing but yellow begins to sound like a mislabeled specimen, maybe a rootstock seedling that replaced a failed graft or just plain mislabeled at growers or retail outlet. If purchased at a big box labeling at at least one of the chains represented out here can be pretty creative.

bboy,

I haven't touched anything on the tree, and, if you're talking about the general diamond shape shown in the picture, that's the natural growth. When I planted it, it was more uniform along the leader. I'm going to remove the lower branches of the diamond shape within the next couple years.....so that I have more headroom underneath.

Branches look headed back in closeup. If you just got it, it wouldn't have to have been cut back by you. Shape definitely not natural for this tree.

When I said that was the natural growth, I meant that it was natural for the time I've had it, since I did not touch it at all. I agree, either the nursery, or the shipping, caused the lower branches to be cut back. But, it doesn't bother me at all because the upper branches are forming fine and I'll be removing those lower ones in the near future. Do you have any advice on the best time to prune those off? And should I wait at least two more years?

Prune them off after the ones above are much bigger. The ignorant haircut treatment your tree received will have a deforming effect, producing hedgelike excessive branching (twigginess) which will probably result in the need for a little corrective thinning.

I got a ~rare, slow-growing hawthorn through the mail once that was topped to fit it in the box. Years later it had not gotten over it and I pulled it out. Looked like a clothes drying rack the whole time I had it.