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I think this sentence:
あまり日がささまいためか、どれもひょろひょろとした貧弱な木だ
means something like "Since they get too much sunlight, they are shabby trees", but while I know ために I can't find anything about ためか in my grammars; I was wondering if they have the same meaning.
No, ためか and ために don't mean the same thing -- just as か and に do not mean the same thing.
The か in ためか is the same か used as the verbal question mark. This indicates uncertainty and indefiniteness.
(Separately, I'm pretty sure you have a typo, where ささまい should be ささない instead.)
If the sentence said あまり日がささないため[に]{●}, that would be a definite reason. However, the sentence instead says あまり日がささないため[か]{●}, indicating that the speaker is uncertain, and is proposing a possible theoretical reason for the observed result. In English, we would use words like maybe, perhaps, possibly, and the like to express a similar idea.
あまり as "not much", which means I was remembering a negative verb afterwards.