Crack on Youngii Weeping Birch!

Hello,
I just purchased a Serpentine Youngii Weeping Birch. For me, this was an expensive purchase - 125.00. One of the horizontal branch's (not the main serpentine one) is cracked from underneath about 1/2 way through. (This is one of my favorite horizontal branch's on it!) The diameter of the branch is 1/2" I have placed 3 fabric bandaids side by side (not on top of each other) to kind of offer a little more support to the branch - although it seemed to be strongly supported on its own.

Am I helping my tree or hindering it? And is there anything else I can do about the crack?

Thanks for any advice you can give!

Could anyone help me on this problem?

Could you post a pic?

i have a young birch, betula nigra 'summer cascade' that arrived with the main leader having a branch that was torn off leaving a huge gouge that seemed to be more than half the diameter of the tree. it would not stand without breaking in two. all i did was staked it for strength and and allowed the air to "heal" the wound. it is filling in now and seems to have worked. i seriously am surprised due to the deepness of the tear.

Fabric "band-aids" really aren't adding any support, and in my opinion is a bad idea anyway. They keep the area moist (that would normally be dry), encouraging rot or disease. Makes a great place for insects to hide too. Wounds on trees are very different than wounds on people, in many ways.

Providing a splint of some kind might be something you could do, if you think the area is flexing too much to heal on its own. But I would trim off some of the weight of the branch to reduce the structural stress. Whether you would clip the ends of the branch, or selective thin individual smaller branches out is up to you. (I would probably choose the latter to preserve the balance.)

BTW, you probably already know this: the word "Serpentine" merely refers to how the tree has been trained. It is really a Young's Weeping birch (Betula pendula 'Youngii') growing in a serpentine form.

Thank-you for your help! I took the bandaids off a few days ago, and actually it looked great under there. There was green branch growing in the messed up place. But I agree with you, I'm afraid it the bandaids remained on the branch they might cause some trouble. But it does look like they may have helped for the 2 or 3 weeks I had them on.

Yes, I understand that the "Serpentine" part of my tree is trained. I am trying to learn how to continue training it.

Again, thank-you for taking the time to respond! I appreciate the help. I'm fairly new to buying and caring for trees.