I ordered this Smoketree. It's my 2nd one after the 1st died a couple of years ago.
Can I grow this into a tree? It has a single-trunk, but I'm concerned about the low-level 3-branches and how that would affect growth as a tree.
Look at the 2nd/3rd pic for what I hopped to achieve.
Thanks!
I presume this is Cotinus coggyria, rather than the native C. obovatus given the red foliage. It naturally tends to be a multistemmed shrub but with judicious pruning, you should be able to turn it into a small single-trunked tree.
Not sure you know but you need to prune it yearly to get the best "smoke". I really cut mine back because they grow so fast and I don't want it to exceed my reach. IMHO It's a beautiful plant!
The last one I had grew very tall and very fast once it had been in the ground for like 2 years. But we bought that as a 5-7 ft height tree and it already had the form in pic #2 above. Strong winds knocked it over when we were on vacation and died when we put it back upright...
I want to plant it just off the corner of the house by our split-level driveway and have a configuration like pic #3 that would tower over or very near our front door sidewalk.
Really concerned I won't be able to do that because this new one has that 3-branch split at the bottom and will end up growing more diagonally upwards and out.
