Live trees grow new roots every year. However if your spruce are rootbound from careless container culture at a production facility that is a lingering issue that has little to do with new root growth - what do they look like at the trunk bases? Circling wads of roots preventing good anchorage?

All the trunks look good. None of these on this side of the house were container grown. We hand dug them from a farmer that was going to cut them. I have a Walnut Glen that I got from Porterhowse Farms on the other side that is about 15 feet tall and a dwarf Globe that is 7 to 8 feet- both uprooted on one side and then tipped back up and staked.

You might want to loosen the ropes slightly each year for a couple years. I had an osage orange smashed to the ground by a fallen elm, and had a rope on it for many years & finally took it off. But that was nearly uprooted and worse than your situation.

About 12 years ago, here were trees like yours staked around my town, after a tornado tipped them, similar to what you show in your pictures. If I recall correctly none of them stayed staked for more than two seasons.

You just have to make sure the stakes are strong enough to prevent further damage by strong winds, until the trees can set more roots.

Many of our 'tipped' trees looked normal after a few years.

I was asking about the root crowns and not the trunks. Field grown stock has often been started in a container and then planted out in a field to grow on - buying field grown is not an assurance that no deformity of roots by being left too long in a container has occurred. Inspection of roots is how this is checked for.

And just to be clear, the trees they straightened around here has a nice root spread that was apparent when the tree was still tilted.

I don't know what yours looked like at that time.

Thank goodness your home survived…….the survival of your trees would be icing on the cake. I am happy no one in your family was hurt.

debra

p.s. I hope the trees do survive!

I don't know if these trees will survive or not. However now it the time to buy a couple of large trees and have them professionally planted.

in a couple of years. If the storm trees survived you will have a couple of more large trees in your yard. If the storm trees do not survive you you will still have a couple of large trees.

Autumn a couple years ago. The black hill spruce with stakes is just off the photo on the right. Thanks for all the helpful tips and advice.

was all the ground disturbance related to the storm??? .. ken

It was a field between us and the neighbor and their house was flattened and then in our yard it was the tree and stump removal.

Holy cow. The destruction there is hard to believe.