
When I was in graduate school, I went to an ACC football powerhouse. The school sent 2 quarterbacks to the pros in the 3 years I was there. I went to every home football game–it was exciting.
One of the cheers I vaguely remember ended with the phrase “and lean, lean, lean…” and everyone in the stands would lean one way, then the next.
It was a fun thing for football. For house plants, not so much. This time of year, you may find them reaching for what little sun we get. And it’s only going to get worse, depending on where you live.
In my part of the country, November through February are some of the cloudiest days of the year. When we most need sun, we are least likely to have it. So when it does shine, everything reaches for it–the plants stretch toward it, my dog finds a spot to lay in it–everything wants that light and warmth.
This is natural, but you’ll have make sure to turn your plants when you’re watering. You don’t want to grow a plant with a perpetual bend!
Ha! I grow a windmill palm in a large tub because I do not want to plant it until I can find a good home for it. (Everyone likes it, but no one wants to take care of it.) Technically, it can live in a tub. Once the canopy matures, it gets not bigger. It only gets taller. (The canopy on a tall mature tree is no bigger than a canopy on a short mature tree.) Anyway, to get a straght trunk in its currently partly shaded situation, I must turn it occasionally. It seems unnatural, but actually, a perfectly straight trunk is unnatural too.
That sounds about like my lemon. Somehow it got a bend in the trunk. It must have happened over time of course and I never noticed but as it’s grown and now has less foliage on the lower limbs I see it clearly. Trees are going to do what they’re going to do.
You will appreciate this from my retail gardening days. I once was working with a neighbor and she was picking out a tree–I can’t recall the specific kind–but there was a gorgeous specimen she rejected because she said her husband wouldn’t like because the branches weren’t perfectly symmetrical.
In a place where we get ice and heavy snow to damage trees so often, that guy must have needed psychological help! They moved away recently. Any wonder?
Karla