Before you start chopping away at the tree, you should wear proper eye and face protection in case any wood chips fly towards your eyes. Whenever you operate a power tool, always be sure to wear proper protection for any exposed parts of your body. When making the cut, you do not want to just cut a straight line into the tree. If you decide on a short lived plant, you are probably looking for something with speedy growth. This means the root system will be particularly aggressive, so be sure not to place it near any septic tanks or other deep rooted plants. If the roots have plenty of area to grow, then they will shoot out extremely fast and your tree will take off in growth. If the tree is wasting nutrients by sending them out to the branch that cannot be saved, it is practically throwing away all the nutrients that it could use on the other, healthier branches. As soon as you start to see a branch that is deteriorating or becoming unhealthy, chop it off right away. At the very least, trim down the unhealthy part but leave all the segments that still look like they could continue growing. Just take a drive through the undeveloped regions of your city, and look at what trees are green. Find out their names, and buy them. They might not be the most attractive trees, but you rarely have to make any modifications to your soil to get them to grow. The Rocky Mountain Juniper is an extremely hardy and easy to grow tree. This will encourage the shape to stick, since no fruits will be produced at that point in time. Each of the different shapes is very useful in certain situations. So, here are some different types of shapes you are able to choose from. Standard trees hardly need any explanation. These are the varieties that are most common, and probably what you picture when you think of any tree. Every moment the tree is constricted it is losing some of its vitality. As soon as it seems like the wind is dying down around your area, look on the weather reports and see how much wind is forecasted. If the skies will be pretty clear for a while, you should at least temporarily take off the stakes.