Suckers Everywhere

[fraidl]

I have a crabapple tree in my yard, about 50 feet from where the suckers are located. The only other trees in the yard are a pine and my neighbor has a swamp maple. Can anyone tell me if the suckers could be traveling 50 feet from the crabapple. There are no suckers within a 10-15 foot area of the crabapple. Any help is greatly appreciated as these things are driving me crazy! Thanks.

[phototropic1]

Yes.....some people call the root suckers that develop some distance from the tree "toes".

[fraidl]

Is there any way to get rid of them? Do you think they are definitely coming from the crab apple and not the maple? I don't want to cut the crab apple down if it won't necessarily kill the root system that is causing the suckers or toes. These things are relentless.

[phototropic1]

Are you sure they are 50 feet away from the crabapple? Have the suckers developed leaves yet? If they have, you should be able to tell whether or not they are from the maple or the crabapple. If you have a hard time distinguishing them, post a picture. I'm sure someone here can tell you which tree they are most likely coming from.

[waterfall larry]

There could be 2 possibilities. Either there could be sucker shoots coming off of underground tree roots or the suckers could be from seeds falling down and gerinating.

Have you played archeologist and carefully removed the dirt from the sucker to determine if there is a big underground root? If there is no root, it may be from air born seeds.

[NCSULandscaper]

its root suckers, usually i just keep them mowed down because i have a large crabapple tree in my yard and it does it every year

[waterfall larry]

So it is root suckers.

The biggest project thing to do would be to renovate the entire turf and dig down a couple of inches and remove the roots. If the grass isn't that thick and lush you might kill 2 birds with one stone. This would be a big project, it sounds like the tree has plenty of root system so a couple of inches or root removed from the top shouldn't hurt.

It is also is a matter of how many sucker shoots there are and how strongly they bug you.

If there aren't many suckers would spot removing them be an option?

Another possibility might be to get the turf as lush and thick as possible. Let the grass hide the suckers.

If you removed the tree, one wonders if the roots would continue living or how long it would take them to die. If the tree is large and mature it would be a shame to remove a large square footage of color and beauty provider.

And would another tree be just as bad? What is the sense of jumping from one frying pan to another frying pan?

One last possibility I can think of would be to cut the tree down and repalce it with an equal amount of color and beauty from some other types and varieties of plant material.

I guess it all comes down to how strongly the suckers bug you and how many there are of them and whether or not their numbers are increasing.

[jwholden]

Does anyone else read the title to this thread and think it is about selling?

[fraidl]

They are definitely rooted. I can only cut them with snippers as I am unable to pull the root system up. The suckers just pop off when I try to pull them up. I will post pictures this evening. As long as I keep them mowed down, they are not too bad. But I would say there are probably at least 20 suckers growing in the lawn.

[ckcland]

Kill the squirells in your property... they are burying the seeds 50 ' away. Suckers will not crawl 50' from the base!

[NCSULandscaper]

Originally posted by ckcland
Kill the squirells in your property... they are burying the seeds 50 ' away. Suckers will not crawl 50' from the base!

but the roots they are coming off from can

[fraidl]

I ended up bringing them to an agricultural extension and found that they were from a sassafras tree I cut down two years ago. It appears the roots are still alive. Any idea how I can kill them without killing my lawn?

[ckcland]

So much for my squirell theory. Cut the sapling to about 2"-3" above ground level and apply concentrated roundup onto cut area. This is tedious but is an effective way of killing root systems. I use this technique for poison ivy and it works well.

[fraidl]

Thanks. I will try and let you know how it goes.