Excellent video. I appreciate that you showed many closeups when you explained why suckers grow and where to cut them. Thank you...I now have to go sucker cutting.
Thank you, this video is so helpful!! We just moved in and got a notice from the hoa to remove our tree suckers that look like they have been growing awhile and I was so stressed out how to tackle it 😅
You are most welcome! I'm glad it was helpful! Good luck with your HOA - feel free to follow for more tips, I deal with HOA's all the time for my clients.
I could never live my life with an organization telling how to take care of my property, although I would love to go over to my neighbors and tell them to cut the suckers😂
I learned alot watching this. But after watching you with that small tree saw it made me tired. Here is what I do when there a bunch of branches; I break out my Sawzall. Most people call them a reciprocating saw. They make root and tree sawing blades for these... you can pick up a reciprocating saw at harbor freight for the best price (I don't have anything to do with them but for tools you only use a few times a year a cheap version is best.) The ground is sometimes so hard here that I've actually used the sawzall to loosen the dirt... for example planting in dry hard clay, so don't be afraid to get dirt on the blade... blades are cheap.
Depends on where you get the sucker from. These that I show in this video don't have any root, I have to cut them off of the main structural roots of the plant, so they would not likely survive after being cut off. If you have a Cherry or an Aspen that's sending runner roots into the lawn and shooting suckers from there, then yeah, just dig up the whole root, cut it into pieces and as long as it has both a top and a feeder root it will likely survive. But I don't know if it will ever turn into anything worth having. An Aspen will obviously grow into another Aspen, but a Cherry from a sucker will probably never produce fruit. I could be wrong though, I've never tried it!
It is a plum, but it was well established before I bought the house. I suspect it actually needed the stress of less water in the summer to encourage it to fruit, but I could be wrong on that.
Did you figure out what species the suckers are? Great video! My eastern redbud is making tiny little suckers that look have leaves identical to the eastern redbud.
I never did. Since I cut off those suckers the tree has been wonderful and I never spared it another thought. That doesn't surprise me actually. Redbuds are native to the US, so they are quite hardy to most of the regions where they are sold. I don't think I've ever seen a grafted one. So if they sucker, which I think is pretty rare in my experience, then it's likely it's own tree.
I was thinking of multiplying my trees but leaving some suckers grow and remove them later. How long should I leave them until I can remove them safely w/o killing the main tree. My tree right now is only 2 years old, it's about 3' tall.
I need to ask some qualifying questions in order to answer that. Mainly, why would you leave the suckers? I might change this answer based on your response, but here are my initial thoughts: Suckers use more energy than they produce, so they aren't doing the tree any good. The only reason to leave them would be if you have rabbits or other things that might eat the lower parts of your tree, girdling and killing it. That's honestly the only purpose I've ever heard of for why the tree would use so much energy to grow suckers. So unless you are in a rural area overtaken my ground dwelling herbivores, I would remove the suckers as soon as they appear. My second thought is that trees don't usually sucker so quickly unless they are stressed. I recommend checking the planting depth, make sure you can see the root flare above the soil grade.
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK. YOU. This was so straight forward and gave me all the info I’ve been looking for. Quick question can/should you keep growing the suckers somewhere else? Or are they more like weeds? I’m VERY new to gardening and learning as I grow. 😊
You are so welcome! I'm glad the video was helpful! You can try to grow the suckers elsewhere but it's not usually worth it. They don't have their own roots for starters, so you would need to root them first. They are not always the same species as the tree they came from (grafted root stock for instance) and when they are the same species, suckers are typically herbaceous growth only, which means they'll never flower or produce fruit. If you want more of the same tree, you'll have better luck learning to graft so you can grow your tree branches onto some strong roots and make new plants that way. But my advice for a new gardener is to just buy some new trees from a reputable nursery (not box store trees) to add to your garden :) Then watch my videos on planting trees!
What happens if you get a sucker growing out from a root from an apple tree but the sucker is 6 ft away from the base of the apple tree I'm thinking of cutting it out completely or letting it be a root stock for a future Scion What is your opinion
Thanks for your question! Personally, we work in flower gardens so we are concerned with the health of the desired plant, not really in propagation. When I see a sucker that's far from the mother plant, I usually cut the sucker off flush with the root, as I showed in the video. You could cut the root out in one piece and have a new plant, but it will be the species of the root - not necessarily the species of the top of the tree. If the tree was grafted then the roots are a different species than the desirable top. Also, if you cut a suckering root, it will likely send more suckers at the cut end, so in order for that to be successful you'd have to remove the whole thing back to the tree. I hope that helps!
There are some chemicals that can be used but I don't know how well they work or if they do anything else to the tree. I heard of a product called Sucker Kill that was supposed to be affective on Aspen suckers, but I've never used it. I wouldn't use any such chemicals on food trees, but again this isn't my area of expertise. I just cut them off as soon as they appear, usually once a year in the spring.
Do the suckers come back every year and do you have to keep cutting them? Seems like a major annoyance, almost makes the whole “Franken-tree” approach seem more trouble than it’s worth.
Yes they come back, and yes keep cutting. Although it's not a big chore if you keep up on it each year. I usually deal with these suckers once or twice a year before they get big. Many trees will sucker whether they are grafted or not. Cherries and other prunus species are particularly known for it. The thing about grafted trees is that the suckers will look different than the tree because the roots actually are a different type of tree.
Trees that sucker will continue to shoot suckers forever, but you slow it down by cutting off the nodes at the base of the existing suckers. It forces the tree to make a new node which takes a lot longer. But leaving a stub leaves nodes and encourages their growth.
I have a cherry tree it ishu is there tinny sucker growing in the yard next to it and there the same tree type becuse of the leafs are the same side smaller
Cherry trees tend to sucker AND seed. So those could be seedlings, which are much easier to weed out. Try following one down to it's root to see if it's a sucker or seedling. If they are seedlings then just pop them out like any other weed. If it's a sucker then cut it slightly into, but flush with, the root like I demonstrated in the video to reduce the numbers of new ones next year. Thanks for watching and commenting! I hope this is helpful!
@@GardenUPLandscape it looks like my nabores tree it is a liveing stump witch is best to say the hole tree is a sucker but meany tinny ones and it is older then my cherry tree i really enjoy them becuse once it was a huge fence full of it And i did finde you video great and i subscribed
Not forever, the best you can do is slow down how fast they come back by removing the future growth points. That's what I tried to demonstrate in the video.
so even if I placed that black fabric stuff and woodchips around the tree they could still grow back?...someone said use borax but I'm afraid that may also kill the main trees roots.
@@darlong9917 Oh I could write a dissertation about why I hate landscape fabric! No, it doesn't work against wussy weeds, tree suckers would absolutely shred landscape fabric into ribbons - I deal with that mess all the time when we are cleaning up for a new client. Trust me, don't bother with fabric, it's the biggest scam in the landscape industry. I've never heard of borax for tree suckers, I've heard of borax with sugar for ants... No, honestly the best thing you can do is just go out a couple times a year and remove the suckers along with a little bit of the root they came from. After a couple years you'll have gotten most of the growth nodes and there will be fewer and fewer every year. This year on the plum tree in this video I think I got 6 or 7 suckers total and they were all out in the flower bed away from the tree, so from new nodes. What kind of tree are you dealing with? If you've got an Aspen then my advice is very different lol
@@darlong9917 Ooof, yeah that's not fun. Maples can sucker a little bit but they don't usually sucker much unless there was some serious damage to the trunk or canopy. Did something happen to the top? They usually seed profusely. Are you sure they are suckers and not seedlings/saplings?
Excellent question, thank you for asking! Suckers are never gone for good unless the whole tree is dead down to the roots. But instead of the sucker jungle I started with in this video, I now cut about 5 or 6 much smaller ones from the outward roots once or twice a year. Much easier to deal with!
Excellent video. I appreciate that you showed many closeups when you explained why suckers grow and where to cut them. Thank you...I now have to go sucker cutting.
Thanks for the feedback and good luck with your trees!
This was so helpful, thank you, now I’m out to remove multiple suckers from a saucer magnolia, got my work “cut out” for me, Ha!
😆 LOL Awesome!
Glad you kept the tree. It’s got great colour.
It really is pretty, and the fruit is delicious!
awesome tutorial for removing suckers
Thanks very much!
Thank you, this video is so helpful!! We just moved in and got a notice from the hoa to remove our tree suckers that look like they have been growing awhile and I was so stressed out how to tackle it 😅
You are most welcome! I'm glad it was helpful! Good luck with your HOA - feel free to follow for more tips, I deal with HOA's all the time for my clients.
I could never live my life with an organization telling how to take care of my property, although I would love to go over to my neighbors and tell them to cut the suckers😂
@coreysellers4529 lol! HOAs can be nice and a headache at the same time. We live in Vegas so it's almost impossible to not live in one here
Great demo! Thank you for all the info!
You're welcome! Thanks for watching!
Thank you so much for the video! Been dealing with suckers far too long! I have my work cut out for me, three trees! Yuck!
You're so welcome! I'm glad this was helpful!
My guess is the root stock is a pear. My pear tree has exactly the kind of thorns you have on the suckers.
You may very well be right! I've never tried to figure it out, I just cut them off LOL
Thanks for watching! Subscribe for more gardening tips, tricks and hacks! As well as a whole series on difficult weeds! See you in the garden!
:)
I learned alot watching this. But after watching you with that small tree saw it made me tired. Here is what I do when there a bunch of branches; I break out my Sawzall. Most people call them a reciprocating saw. They make root and tree sawing blades for these... you can pick up a reciprocating saw at harbor freight for the best price (I don't have anything to do with them but for tools you only use a few times a year a cheap version is best.) The ground is sometimes so hard here that I've actually used the sawzall to loosen the dirt... for example planting in dry hard clay, so don't be afraid to get dirt on the blade... blades are cheap.
I don't know that I'd want to use a power tool on a tree I want to keep healthy. How precise are they?
Can you dig/cut out the sucker and replant it? Like if you wanted to save the sucker
Depends on where you get the sucker from. These that I show in this video don't have any root, I have to cut them off of the main structural roots of the plant, so they would not likely survive after being cut off. If you have a Cherry or an Aspen that's sending runner roots into the lawn and shooting suckers from there, then yeah, just dig up the whole root, cut it into pieces and as long as it has both a top and a feeder root it will likely survive. But I don't know if it will ever turn into anything worth having. An Aspen will obviously grow into another Aspen, but a Cherry from a sucker will probably never produce fruit. I could be wrong though, I've never tried it!
Looks like a Plum tree. Some trees do not fruit until a certain age. Hackberry takes 9 years and is a great tree for birds.
It is a plum, but it was well established before I bought the house. I suspect it actually needed the stress of less water in the summer to encourage it to fruit, but I could be wrong on that.
Did you figure out what species the suckers are? Great video! My eastern redbud is making tiny little suckers that look have leaves identical to the eastern redbud.
I never did. Since I cut off those suckers the tree has been wonderful and I never spared it another thought.
That doesn't surprise me actually. Redbuds are native to the US, so they are quite hardy to most of the regions where they are sold. I don't think I've ever seen a grafted one. So if they sucker, which I think is pretty rare in my experience, then it's likely it's own tree.
I was thinking of multiplying my trees but leaving some suckers grow and remove them later. How long should I leave them until I can remove them safely w/o killing the main tree. My tree right now is only 2 years old, it's about 3' tall.
I need to ask some qualifying questions in order to answer that. Mainly, why would you leave the suckers?
I might change this answer based on your response, but here are my initial thoughts:
Suckers use more energy than they produce, so they aren't doing the tree any good. The only reason to leave them would be if you have rabbits or other things that might eat the lower parts of your tree, girdling and killing it. That's honestly the only purpose I've ever heard of for why the tree would use so much energy to grow suckers.
So unless you are in a rural area overtaken my ground dwelling herbivores, I would remove the suckers as soon as they appear.
My second thought is that trees don't usually sucker so quickly unless they are stressed. I recommend checking the planting depth, make sure you can see the root flare above the soil grade.
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK. YOU.
This was so straight forward and gave me all the info I’ve been looking for.
Quick question can/should you keep growing the suckers somewhere else? Or are they more like weeds? I’m VERY new to gardening and learning as I grow. 😊
You are so welcome! I'm glad the video was helpful!
You can try to grow the suckers elsewhere but it's not usually worth it. They don't have their own roots for starters, so you would need to root them first. They are not always the same species as the tree they came from (grafted root stock for instance) and when they are the same species, suckers are typically herbaceous growth only, which means they'll never flower or produce fruit.
If you want more of the same tree, you'll have better luck learning to graft so you can grow your tree branches onto some strong roots and make new plants that way. But my advice for a new gardener is to just buy some new trees from a reputable nursery (not box store trees) to add to your garden :) Then watch my videos on planting trees!
@@GardenUPLandscape Oh wow, great info! Thank you!
What happens if you get a sucker growing out from a root from an apple tree but the sucker is 6 ft away from the base of the apple tree
I'm thinking of cutting it out completely or letting it be a root stock for a future Scion
What is your opinion
Thanks for your question!
Personally, we work in flower gardens so we are concerned with the health of the desired plant, not really in propagation. When I see a sucker that's far from the mother plant, I usually cut the sucker off flush with the root, as I showed in the video. You could cut the root out in one piece and have a new plant, but it will be the species of the root - not necessarily the species of the top of the tree. If the tree was grafted then the roots are a different species than the desirable top. Also, if you cut a suckering root, it will likely send more suckers at the cut end, so in order for that to be successful you'd have to remove the whole thing back to the tree.
I hope that helps!
Is there any way to stop em from coming back?
There are some chemicals that can be used but I don't know how well they work or if they do anything else to the tree. I heard of a product called Sucker Kill that was supposed to be affective on Aspen suckers, but I've never used it. I wouldn't use any such chemicals on food trees, but again this isn't my area of expertise. I just cut them off as soon as they appear, usually once a year in the spring.
Do the suckers come back every year and do you have to keep cutting them? Seems like a major annoyance, almost makes the whole “Franken-tree” approach seem more trouble than it’s worth.
Yes they come back, and yes keep cutting. Although it's not a big chore if you keep up on it each year. I usually deal with these suckers once or twice a year before they get big.
Many trees will sucker whether they are grafted or not. Cherries and other prunus species are particularly known for it. The thing about grafted trees is that the suckers will look different than the tree because the roots actually are a different type of tree.
Hey there. Thanks for this. So if you don't remove all bottom of suckers they just keep shooting new ones? I wondered what they were. 🤔
Trees that sucker will continue to shoot suckers forever, but you slow it down by cutting off the nodes at the base of the existing suckers. It forces the tree to make a new node which takes a lot longer. But leaving a stub leaves nodes and encourages their growth.
@@GardenUPLandscape thank you for this great advice. Appreciated so much
I have a cherry tree it ishu is there tinny sucker growing in the yard next to it and there the same tree type becuse of the leafs are the same side smaller
Cherry trees tend to sucker AND seed. So those could be seedlings, which are much easier to weed out. Try following one down to it's root to see if it's a sucker or seedling. If they are seedlings then just pop them out like any other weed. If it's a sucker then cut it slightly into, but flush with, the root like I demonstrated in the video to reduce the numbers of new ones next year.
Thanks for watching and commenting! I hope this is helpful!
@@GardenUPLandscape it looks like my nabores tree it is a liveing stump witch is best to say the hole tree is a sucker but meany tinny ones and it is older then my cherry tree i really enjoy them becuse once it was a huge fence full of it
And i did finde you video great and i subscribed
My parents’ backyard fence line has suckers the entire length. It’s going to be a busy few weekends 😩
I wish you much luck and stamina! 🙏
is there a way to keep them from growing back next to the main tree?
Not forever, the best you can do is slow down how fast they come back by removing the future growth points. That's what I tried to demonstrate in the video.
so even if I placed that black fabric stuff and woodchips around the tree they could still grow back?...someone said use borax but I'm afraid that may also kill the main trees roots.
@@darlong9917 Oh I could write a dissertation about why I hate landscape fabric! No, it doesn't work against wussy weeds, tree suckers would absolutely shred landscape fabric into ribbons - I deal with that mess all the time when we are cleaning up for a new client. Trust me, don't bother with fabric, it's the biggest scam in the landscape industry.
I've never heard of borax for tree suckers, I've heard of borax with sugar for ants... No, honestly the best thing you can do is just go out a couple times a year and remove the suckers along with a little bit of the root they came from. After a couple years you'll have gotten most of the growth nodes and there will be fewer and fewer every year. This year on the plum tree in this video I think I got 6 or 7 suckers total and they were all out in the flower bed away from the tree, so from new nodes.
What kind of tree are you dealing with? If you've got an Aspen then my advice is very different lol
maple tree the suckers right up against it and bout 6ft high now
@@darlong9917 Ooof, yeah that's not fun. Maples can sucker a little bit but they don't usually sucker much unless there was some serious damage to the trunk or canopy. Did something happen to the top? They usually seed profusely. Are you sure they are suckers and not seedlings/saplings?
🙌
😊
Thank you
You're welcome
So, after two years of this video , are the suckers really gone for good ?
Excellent question, thank you for asking! Suckers are never gone for good unless the whole tree is dead down to the roots. But instead of the sucker jungle I started with in this video, I now cut about 5 or 6 much smaller ones from the outward roots once or twice a year. Much easier to deal with!
@@GardenUPLandscape Thank You. I have 3 myrtles and one of them with a jungle of suckers and it is because it is dying due to some weird parasite ...
Say Goodbye suckers! 😄
You've got that right!
I couldn't pay much attention because of the apples that kept coming into sight :(
Apples? Do you mean the plum fruit was distracting you? Or do you mean the leaves were obstructing the camera's view?
@@GardenUPLandscape I mean the apples under you low-cut shirt!