If you use a stainless steel bolt and nut, and leave some extra length, you can unscrew the nut a few turns every year or so and prevent it from being engulfed.
That crotch might always be a little weaker that the rest, but I read you can aways take some branches that are growing toward each other and twist them together. In time they will become one and may be a natural brace.
I have been thinking of this last method as a way of insuring rows of bushes from crown borer attacks. If a bushes crown gets girdled the bush can be nourished from the neighboring bushes, till it re-roots. Just a theory.
I am assuming that that split is at the lowest branch. If you have a branch
below the split I might try to work with that, depending on its location and
shape.
Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.