let us know if and when he figures out why it fell over ... one wouldnt expect such with a seedling in native soil that has been grown for that long ... as planted ..

ken

I've had a lot of heavy wet snow and nothing like this has happened. The top 1/2 of my Cupressus duclouxiana 'Eric's form' got bowed over at some point...a ground stake and rope pulling it upright for a year corrected the problem! That is likely to be a long term issue with that SW Chinese cypress. Their ascending branches catch heavy snow, which is practically non-existent in that, or most, parts of China. (Because of the Siberian high pressure system, Nor'easters as we have on the eastern US seaboard, basically don't happen. Most of China stays quite dry in winter. Although Beijing recently had a record snowfall, and so maybe this pattern is changing somewhat)

Sorry this happened, good luck keeping it alive. I'd be doing a 'root necroscopy' if it dies, to see what was going on. I wonder if it maybe had knotted roots that kept it from stabilizing itself. Once they are sufficiently knotted the tree has trouble sending out strong laterals. I've seen it with both conifers and hardwoods. The worse example was my Fagus 'Rotundifolia' that soldiered on for almost 10 years with a bowling ball shaped root mass. It eventually just strangled itself and rotted during a wet spell.

for me the question.. which wont ever be answered until its dead ... and dug up ... is how many major roots were broken in the fall ....

if the soil loosened.. and it just tipped over.. and you can straighten it so there might be minimal root damage.. you might have success in restoring it ...

but i suspect.. perhaps half the root mass was torn off on the side away from the fall ... and thats a huge root loss.. for a tree that big ..

besides the fact.. if that happened.. half its root support structure was destroyed ... so it will be prone to every major wind event for years .. that would mean a lot of staking for a long period of time ... and im not sure i would want to look at that forever .. it might piss me off every time i looked at it ...

is it a duplicate plant... or his only specimen of this plant????

ken

Could've had girdling roots. It might survive a re-staking -- I did that successfully w/an osage orange toppled/crushed by a fallen tree, but a fir isn't an osage orange. Osage orange shown w/trunk of broken tree to right that fell on it. There's a line tying the osage to the telephone pole that has since been removed.

I'm now thinking that it's a loosing battle on the tree's 'Bottom End'! Owner needs to "walk to the top" and cut out the choice caliper scions and expedite to Silverton !...upright the remains last!!!!!!

Owner does have smaller duplicates$$$$$$