Backyard Ginkgo Tree - Five Years Of Growth - October 2026

Five years ago this month, I planted a very small caliper (with a trunk 'injury') Ginkgo tree in our backyard along the southside about half-way back.  The tree went in the ground in October 2021.  The trunk was basically cracked wide-open (look at the photos in this post), but I wrapped it up, supported it with a bamboo pole and hoped for the best.  

In the five years since (growing seasons: 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025 and now 2026), the tree has survived.  And, put on some growth.  When it went in the ground, it was about waist-high.  Here, below, is what it looks like in the garden today:

That's a little hard to read in terms of where the tree starts/stops.  So, here, below, is an annotated version showing the tip of the tree:

I took out the tape measure and the apical meristem (leader) now reaches 96".  So, this is an eight-foot-tall Ginkgo tree.  And, the trunk has thickened-up and is no longer pencil-thin.  I've NOT pruned this at all, leaving the lowest branches along the trunk.  Based on some Bonsai videos, they call those "thickeners", so I've adopted a similar approach with small caliper landscape trees:  leave the lowest limbs to help 'thicken' up the trunk.  

The other Ginkgo that is planted IB2DWs (which was the replacement) also suffered a setback (from a football that clipped off the leader), but it has recovered.  I'll get some photos of that before it drops its leaves this Fall.