Posts Tagged ‘suckers on trees’

There’s A Sucker Born Every Minute!

April 13th, 2009

Suckers waiting to be trimmed off a main branch

Suckers waiting to be trimmed off a main branch

 

More correctly, suckers “sprout” every minute.

You may think your tree is filling out quite nicely, but on closer examination, most of the new branches are shooting straight towards the sun. Those are suckers, also referred to as water sprouts. You may even find suckers appearing on the lawn, some several feet away from the main trunk. And they are not good.

Suckers grow rapidly and are rather weak compared to the rest of the branches. You will find them on limbs, around the base of the tree or on the main trunk. Because of their tendency to grow quickly, they rob the rest of the tree of valuable nutrients, weakening the entire tree in the process. Water sprouts that are left to on the tree, put a great deal of weight and pressure on the limb it sprouted from. That weakens the entire limb, inviting cracked bark or breakage. The cracked bark is an open invitation to insects and disease, and a broken limb is a safety hazard. Therefore suckers and water sprouts must be removed while they are still small.

To remove suckers, simply cut them off with sharp pruners or a pruning saw at the base of the sucker. Try a cut as close to the main branch as possible without cutting into that branch. Keep the cut as straight and as small as possible. The larger the cut, the more inner bark is exposed. The more inner bark exposed, the easier it is for diseases and insects to attack your tree.

Removing suckers can actually stimulate the production of even more suckers or water sprouts. Then it becomes a something you will need to do two or three times a year. An application of pruning paste helps curb the appearance of new suckers.

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Posted in Garden Maintenance, HOW TO GARDEN, Trees and Shrubs | Comments (0)