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I woke to find the two contending lead branches snapped off. Not entirely sure why as the winds have been mild. I hope not foul play. This is a Southern Catalpa tree. I live in south Texas. None of the remaining branches really strike me as good candidates to take over. There's 4 branches at equal level. Looking for what is the best approach? Options I can think of:

  1. Leave as is and see how tree responds
  2. Cleanly cut the damaged area on lead branch. See if tree pushes out new growth to take over.
  3. Pick one of the remaining 4 branches to take lead. Cut back the other 3. This would require cutting more then 25% of the tree.

Open to other ideas. Pics attached and yes I realize it's suffering from chlorosis.

Ifrit
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1 Answers1

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In the north ( eg. Chicago) ,catalpas are often severely pruned and tolerate it well ; so loosing a couple branches will do no lasting harm. I would only clean up the broken stump. Footnote : When I first went birdwatching at High Island TX, It took me awhile to figure what the 75 ft trees with flowers were because I had never seen an un -pruned catalpa tree before.

blacksmith37
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