Legume tree not growing in height

I have planted this rare variety of butea monosperma tree which is a legume in garden. It has been three years since I planted it. It started to grow well at first and reached a height of 1.5 feet only after which it stopped growing. It is growing out new leaves which are big and healthy and main shaft is woody about an inch thick. It grows bushy but not growing upwards in height. After pruning it grew out fast bushy not in height it still remains the same.

My suspect is there are palmyra palm trees nearby which might be sucking the nutrients out. Will cutting down the palm trees result in growth of this tree? Please advice.

Hi,
I have no experience with that species but had a similar problem which might be related to your situation. What is  soil? Clay, maybe? Many years ago I planted some various trees including fruit trees. They grew but then stopped at a certain height. Initially what I thought was it might be caused by the rootstock. What buzzed me is that not all were fruit trees. I forgot the topic till recently. I decided to redesign the plot and create a vegetable garden. I uprooted all. All were rootbound. Trees were not able to penetrate the clay. With no root system supporting the tree, they were basically living in a earthen pot. It is a long shot but maybe it is a something similar, just maybe somehow roots are not let what they are supposed to do?
Hope it helps!

I had a Paulownia suddenly stop growing once.  Turns out that a single frosty night with high winds killed off the tip of the tree (the main leader), so all growth from that point on was sideways or a thickening of the trunk.  That species can coppice, so I just cut it back to ground level and let it grow again.