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Hot take: I stopped staking every young maple and the trunks got stronger in 2 years
I used to stake every sapling I planted at a job site in Boise. Last spring I left a row of 10 maples unstaked just to see what happened. Two years later those trunks are way thicker than the staked ones, and the staked trees still lean when the ties come off. The wind moving them around is what builds the wood. Anyone else skip stakes on smaller stock, or do you still stake everything under a certain caliper?
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amy_coleman217d ago
Watching how the unstaked maples thickened up really shows how much the wind does for them, so I'd take that idea even further and plant them a little closer together too. When they brush against each other in the breeze they rub and sway, and that little stress makes the trunks even tougher than planting them out in the open. Give them that room to move and you end up with trees you never have to babysit with a stake.
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