What I am thinking is that I'll keep the left trunk. Perhaps I'll also reduce the height of the dead trunk to about ¹/₄ the hieght of the new trunk. Then, a bit of carving on the dead trunk might do the trick for now. Eventually, I might remove the dead trunk to the base of the new trunk and perhaps carve out a hole at the base.

Fred P. Arnold (11-5-95) - It may benefit more from a year or two of growth so that the left hand trunk can acquire a more reasonable caliper than anything else. Have you considered making it the centerpiece of a small forest planting? I feel that it would do very well as the anchor piece for a 3-5 tree group, possibly on a small hillock at the center.

Anton Nijhuis (11-7-95) - Too much competition from both new trunks, I would remove the right trunk completely. I would jin or hollow, reduce in size ( a little at a time ) the dead trunk. The left trunk and branches should all be wired, the apex reduced and every thing should be in porportion with the dead trunk. A slight informal upright style or even a windswept style with motion from right to left.

Mike M. (11-8-95) - I would snip the right of the two verticals about half way up from where it is attached to the truck. I would then root trim and turn the whole tree 90 degrees to the left, wire the left truck down, cascade style, jin and/or bleach the dead truck. Wire the (now) top branch, which was the right branch, in an appropriate slanted vertical, let it grow to about the same size as the first jin (or a proportionate thereof) then jin it as well. What I see now (5 years from now) is a fukien cascade with two short jins that reach out and up as if to tell the story of a tree that has been beaten twice before, but refuses to give up, if it can't grow up, it will grow down. A lot of work, but a knarly old fukien which just won't quit seems to be the best course for this tree.

Sandy Vrooman (11-9-95) - Hack and grow, hack and grow until you have better caliper. Use left trunk.

David Waldo (11-10-95) - I am assuming the middle trunk is dead (hard to tell from the picture). First, to be a multiple trunk tree the trunks should emerge from very low on the tree. Given that the left trunk emerges up the center trunk a little it does not look like a separate trunk but a miss guided branch. The reason for this is your eye follows the dead trunk since it is the largest and right in the middle. Also, both "trunks" are about the same hight so you don't know which one to look at. Since the right trunk is the largest I would (1) make the dead trunk much shorter and train the left trunk more as the main trunk of the tree (2) shorten the right trunk to about ¹/₂ its size or smaller. This would hopefully give the sense of one main trunk with some dead wood off of it and a smaller auxillary trunk.