What to do about knocked down tree

[Dan Coakley]

Last year a tree in my front yard fell down due to some sort of disease at the base of the trunk. I was going to have the stump and root removed, but never got around to doing it.

This spring, the tree is growing real well. I have pruned all of the shoots down to just the two largest. Both are growing from the side of the old stump.

My question is whether there is a problem with this approach. My thought was that it was better to grow a new tree from an established root system rather than trying to start again.

Any thoughts anyone might have about this would be appreciated.

[pruninggal]

Hi dan,

I could see how that would seem like a logical conclusion but actually, while roots still exist causing the suckers, you never know which ones corespond with the growth above ground. More importantly, the union between sucker (the new growth) and ground is now very weak - ie. the roots are not directly below the plant. This means that although the tree may seem healthy, if it were to get larger it has the potential to blow right over or fall over from it's weight.

I would recommend not putting your energy into these suckers, getting the stump ground out and starting again. Mulching your new tree will help it establish and grow as well as the suckers do, but much more heathily.

Pruninggal

[Dan Coakley]

Thanks Pruninggal,

I sorta suspected that I would need to totally replace the tree, but hoped to take the cheap and easy way out. I don't want to risk it blowing over the house in later years, so I guess I will cut down the suckers and find a tree service to get rid of the root ball.

Thanks,

Dan