It's just an analogy and a lose one at that, GG. In my mother's original analogy, she would say that sometimes you need to add dirt to a sappling. When she said this, she signaled a spanking with her hand. If you notice, I left that out. I've learned that you can straighten a crooked growing plant ... or child... or someone who has learned wrong coping skills or had their thought patterns damaged, with other things besides duress. Sometimes, though, you need to add something stronger than "soil ammendments." Also, her analogy was for a young sappling. She didn't mention a life long stake/support.

For me, that would fall under "enabling." An overstaked tree would be "enabled" to continue with it's weakness rather than allowing it to form it's own strength. If the beauty of the Harry Lauder's Walking Stick SHRUB is it's crookedness, then it's obvious that staking it would be the wrong thing to do. Some of us are born with our own strength and only need fed from time to time. Others had an unfortunate childhood that twisted and weakened them. Those need more than just feeding. They need extra help.

For the palm tree I talked about, it was at least 20 feet tall when it suffered whatever accident it was that broke it. If it hadn't been braced, it's top would have fallen off.

It's been staked for at least the last 40 yrs that I know of. It's grown straight up again beyond the point where it was broken and then given support. It's a curious and interesting tree... and quite a landmark.