Beginner Gardening: What is attacking my young trees and how can I stop it?, 1 by Wolfgang_E_B

Wolfgang_E_B wrote:
Last spring, I planted several young trees that I bought from a catalogue. They included a dawn redwood, a dappled willow, and a chestnut. The trees were each about 1-2 feet tall and less than a quarter inch thick. They were growing nicely, then something (I suspect it was an insect) decided to chop the tops off of them. The dawn redwood was hit first. It was a clean cut, about six inches from the ground. Whatever did it left the top of the tree lying beside it. (I dipped the top in Rootone and stuck it in the ground, and now I have two dawn redwoods.)

The original redwood put out new buds and started growing again. As soon as the new trunk hardened, it got lopped off again. The second redwood suffered the same fate several times. It's about an inch tall now, beginning it's second year of growth. It had a new shoot coming up a couple of weeks ago, but it got chopped off while still green. The dappled willow and chestnut have also been damaged repeatedly in the same manner. I lost two mimosa trees I had started from seed last spring to the same marauding lumberjack. It only appears to attack trees less than a quarter inch thick.

This photo is of my older dawn redwood. You can clearly see its multiple attempts at vertical growth.