Dumb question: It appears your house sits on a slope, you have many angles in your house, and it appears that the camera is at another angle to everything else.

It you put a level on the tree, or use a plumb bob to check the straightness of the tree, how much from the vertical is the tree.

To me considering all of the angles, the tree looks perfectly health and will only blow over if there is a major wind storm. at which time you house will probably experience some damage.

PS: you have a very nice looking house, and based on the apparent slope may be on a very nice lot.

Have you had it thinned 20-25%? A good pruning by a qualified arborist will likely give it getter visual balance. Also more landscape planting.

What is the black pipe emerging from the ground? And it looks as if there has been some excavation around the tree base and soil has been piled up against it.. (Or has someone just scalped the lawn?) If there was digging, do you think someone has already tried to right the tree? Or it might have tipped due to the digging?

how did you get the cloud to mimic the shape of the tree in the first pic?

what is your base soil type... trees really dont fall over unless there is significant soil issues...

where are you.. big city name.. are you in any tornado alley??

i dont really understand how topping the tree will help this..

imo.. there isnt really anything you can do about this... short of investing a thousand dollars..to have a tree spade come.. digging it up.. and replanting it straight.. if that is even an option...

https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ftsa&q=tree+spade&iax=images&ia=images

i would remove it.. and plant a new tree in the next appropriate planting season.. and walk away for a hundred or two...

see section one as to timing: https://sites.google.com/site/tnarboretum/Home/planting-a-tree-or-shrub

ken

Is this a brand new home built on a bare lot…..with this tree in the middle of everything? The ground looks very uneven to me. What is the story about that black hose across the roots of the tree? If the house is new, when was it built?

Thanks for all the responses and questions.

The house is 15+ years old. Land is pretty flat (Texas), so the "slope" is probably the result of how I held my phone for the pics. Attaching another picture with a crepe myrtle (which is straight) for comparison.

The black pipe is for tree watering (bubblers?). All trees on the property have them.

It does get windy here, as we are in a rural area. Tornado warnings in the spring.

We still don't know why there is dirt piled around the base of the tree, which is not good unless it is the original planting depth for the tree.

Try training and pruning the tree into a more symmetrical shape centered on the trunk for a balanced look.

Yes, amazing cloud shape lol.

We moved to Sunnyvale CA. in 1976. The Chinese Pistache tree in our front yard had been planted there as a "street tree" on the 15 'easment from the street. The whole subdivision was about 10 years old. They call those "street trees" here. We were concerned, as you are, that it might fall over. HOWEVER it is the prevaling winds here in Silicon Valley, slanted the 9 year old tree. We paid a tree company to come in and put a bolt thru the trunk of the tree and strong guy wire with an eyebo on it that you turn to slowly get it straight. Well, that was a LONG time ago and I don't remember exactly what happened, but they may have tried to pull it up straight too quickly , ripping anchoring roots on one side, or the local oak root fungus got it. (we did see the mushroom clusters,) Anyway the tree eventually toppled in a windstorm, and the city planted a new one about 10' far the north from the underground sewer that was under the first tree.

That tree is happy and 30 feet high now. It leans toward the street and SO WHAT!

My suggestion is to get someone to thin out the tree and remove some of the weight from the foliage to allow the wind to blow thru it. (windowing?) Then, as a wonderful old Japanese gentleman once told me, to think of it as the tree bowing, as in showing respect. Play with the foliage, not the trunk. OR just lean your head sideways when you look at it. YES, I am a person who needs to see everything level and it has taken me a few years to accept that the world is not always level. (Most of the people aren't either!)

-Babka

Agree with other who have said, “so what?” Thins in nature are not always symmetrical…. I have a small hydrangea tree to is crooked because the nursery planted it to match the slope of my backyard and not to be level. So what? It’s a beauty anyway!

debra

I may be seeing things, but it kind of looks like the main trunk has self corrected further up the trunk and is growing more straight up? If so, you’re gonna have a cool looking mature tree one day! I’d just have some of the branches trimmed so it doesn’t look so lopsided. I’d also see about gradually correcting the little tree volcano thing you’ve got going on at the base.