I have a couple bradford pear and a couple flowering plums in the front yard. They like to throw suckers from the root stock. Did I not plant them deep enough or is there something else i need to do. I keep cutting them off,but they keep growing back or start a new one.
I don't know much about pears or plums, but I do know there's a sucker born every minute :-D
Scott
Quote from: hardwood on September 06, 2010, 10:19:07 PM
I don't know much about pears or plums, but I do know there's a sucker born every minute :-D
Scott
And i'm a born again sucker,LOL ;)
Our plums, cherries, and blueberries all have suckers. We just cut them low with the mower to keep them down, but you could mulch or use pine straw as a weed/ sucker stopper. I don't think it matters how deep you plant, it is where the roots grow out that the suckers come from.
These seem to come from the joint where the rootstock may have been grafted to the top.
Those are normal... I think it is from the slightly stronger rootstock continually trying to bypass the graft, if you don't remove them, then you lose the graft. I can't tell you how many ornamental pears and cherries I see that look nice for a while then somebody doesn't remove a sucker and all of a sudden one year that little weeping cherry right next to the house becomes a great big tall monster cherry!! :roll:
Some bushes normally spread through suckers, but I think that is the case for most trees.
I agree that root suckers are normal, a nusance but normal. Most small to medium sized horticultural shrubs or "trees" will send up root suckers. Every fruit tree I have send up rain suckers, the in orchard the sheep and goats keep them down, but in the yard I have to mow them continuously right along with the grass. The lilacs and plums are exceptionally prolifc this way, I have patches were the root suckers have crowded out the grass and I just keep mowing. Hazelnuts (filberts) are another one that is famous for root suckers. If you don't keep them cut back your hazelnut tree quickly becomes a brushy thicket.
Brushy thicket,that is exactly what would happen without constant trimming. Thanks everyone.