But the reason Vitex trees are not necessarily, well, sturdy forest giants is that they are really just large shrubs and probably weak wooded ones at that. (compared to say, rhododendrons, which actually have very hard wood as far as I can tell) It's probably a bit like Buddleia - you probably could train some of the larger ones to grow as a "standard" but invariably their weak wood is going to mean the trunk splits at some point. I feel like if Vitex standards were easy we'd see them in gardens, and thus I have to wonder if you'll be constantly running up a down escalator, so to speak.
EDIT: when I google "Vitex tree", I indeed see a lot of pictures of large shrubs, not what *I'd* call trees, at least.
