Shoots Sprouting Around Your Tree in Richmond Hill?

One spring you notice small trees coming up in the lawn, some of them a few metres from the nearest trunk. Or the base of your tree is suddenly ringed with skinny green shoots. Either way, the tree is sending up new growth from places you don’t want it. The cause depends on where the shoots appear.

Two Kinds of Shoots

Shoots from the ground and shoots from the trunk look alike at first, but they come from different places and mean different things.

Root Suckers

These come up from the roots, either right around the base or out across the lawn. Some trees do it as a way of spreading, and they will do it however healthy they are. In Richmond Hill yards the usual culprits are poplar and aspen, staghorn sumac, black locust, lilac, Manitoba maple, silver maple and most cherries and plums, including the Schubert chokecherry common in newer neighbourhoods like Jefferson and Westbrook.

Water Sprouts

These burst out of the trunk or big limbs, often in clusters, and grow straight up fast. They come from dormant buds under the bark that wake up when the tree senses it has lost leaf area. Heavy cutting, storm damage, topping and a declining crown all set them off.

When Shoots Are a Warning

A tree that has always suckered a little is just being itself. A sudden change is worth a closer look.

• A flush of shoots around a tree that never did this before can mean the roots or trunk are under stress, from construction damage, root rot or a girdling root.
• Water sprouts all over a tree that is thinning on top point to a tree trying to replace a dying crown.
• Shoots below the graft on a flowering cherry or crabapple come from the rootstock. Left alone, they can outgrow and crowd out the variety you bought.
• Shoots coming up after a removal are the roots spending their last stored energy.

How to Deal With Root Suckers

The key is cutting each sucker where it starts, not where it meets the grass.

• Dig down to the root. Pull back the soil until you find where the shoot comes off the root, then cut it cleanly with sharp pruners right at that point.
• Do it early and often. Small green shoots are easy. Woody ones a year or two old take more work and leave a bigger wound.
• Don’t just mow them. Mowing leaves the buds at the base, and the tree usually sends up more in response.
• Skip the weed killer. Suckers are connected to the parent tree. Anything sprayed on them can end up in the tree you want to keep.

Water sprouts on the trunk can be cut back to the bark in late winter. If the tree is covered in them, the better question is what stressed it in the first place.

After a Tree Comes Down

When a strong suckering tree like a poplar or silver maple is taken down, its roots can keep throwing up shoots across the yard for a season or two. Grinding the stump helps a lot. Where shoots keep coming from a big root running under the lawn or a garden bed, taking out the main roots ends it. Our tree root removal page explains how we dig them out and fill the ground back in, and our guide on whether a stump will grow back covers which trees are most stubborn.

Richmond Hill Notes

Pulling suckers is ordinary yard work. Before anyone digs near a tree you want to keep, remember that roots run well past the branches and that cutting big ones can harm the tree, which matters for protected trees: under the City’s Tree Preservation By-law 19-25, private trees 15 centimetres or wider at chest height are protected from injury as well as removal. If shoots are coming up from a City boulevard tree, report it to Access Richmond Hill at 905-771-8800.

Choosing a Tree That Behaves

If you are replanting after a suckering tree comes out, pick something that stays put. Hackberry, Kentucky coffeetree, serviceberry, Japanese tree lilac and most oaks rarely send shoots across a lawn, and they handle Richmond Hill winters well. Plant the new tree a few metres from where the old roots ran, so fresh roots aren’t competing with the leftovers.

It also helps to know what you have before you buy a house. A big poplar or sumac patch near the back fence usually means shoots in the lawn every spring, and the neighbour’s yard may be full of them too.

Getting It Sorted

Suckers that keep returning from roots under the grass, shoots that appeared after construction next door, or an unhappy-looking tree above them are all good reasons to text a couple of photos to (289) 475-5822. Scott can usually stop by the same day, explain what is driving the shoots and give you a free quote. We answer every day of the week between 8am and 8pm.