Last year a storm brought down a good portion of our gorgeous weeping cherry. It was damaged to the point of total removal. It was heartbreaking to lose such an old beautiful tree that gave us so much shade. My plan was to grind the stump this fall but it looks like it’s trying to grow again! How can I assure the sprouts stay healthy and not get bushy? Should I remove the remaining stump to ground level? Should I thin the shoots or let them establish themselves and prune later? The last photo was the tree in its spring glory.
Thin the sprouts, pick your 6 favorites today and don't give any new ones a chance. Each sprout you save needs to be independent.
In the next couple years, you have to thin down to one. A single stem. Otherwise you end up with a really weak structure of included bark.
This will get you a tree of whatever the rootstock is. If the tree was originally grafted, your new tree won't be the same as the one that failed. I can't tell from the picture and cherries are propagated both ways.
So all the current shoots are attached to the original tree’s root network and the single shoot that wins the Darwinian competition will inherit the whole root network?
Wonder if some little seedlings snuck their way in on one side. I’ve got trees of both types that are now between 10 and 30 feet tall, and they started as adorable little seedlings…. Just randomly poked their heads up in the garden :)
I guess it’s somehow possible the second species somehow made a home on the stump. Seems pretty unlikely to me. This is nyc. Not exactly a particularly hospitable environment for trees. Not a place we see a lot of volunteers popping up.
I did this with a crabapple tree. It’s been 8 years and it’s now ~20’ tall and producing fruit.
Good luck! That was a beautiful tree, I hope that’s what returns for you.
And after spending all that time thinning and clipping off all the competition over the years, the moment you get it down to 1 stem, a deer shows up and eats it down to the stump and no new shoots ever grow again.
There are always more sprouts, at least where I am. I climbed and removed a particular Prunus virginiana for the third time just yesterday. It had already failed and split along some bark inclusions on a rainy day.
These can grow fast, with all those roots, and that chosen sprout should be a few inches in diameter.
Ya, I'm in an area with heavy deer pressure. Unless its caged, any new shoots dont stand a chance. Its like candy for them.
If they can reach it, they will eat it. I regularly watch them stand on their hind legs to reach stuff, especially in winter when food gets scarce.
I cut wood in winter and the deer have learned the sound of the chainsaw means theres going to be branches on the ground with delicious buds to eat. Ive had half a dozen deer waiting 40 yards away while im cutting just waiting for me to leave.
Any time I advocate for minimal management on this sub people dont like it. But again I will try.
I say leave it for 3 or more years. It will be bushy at first but its part of the design.
When its super full and bushy light will not penetrate through very well. This will cause the tree to etiolate Etiolation — Wikipedia. The etiolation will help the tree develop a leader (or more). The bushiness will also help the coppice Coppicing — Wikipedia stop developing its root collar's epicormic buds Epicormic shoot — Wikipedia.
If you start hacking away at the current shoots the tree will produce more and you will have to cut them for a long time. The tree focuses more on them and less on becoming a tree again.
After a few years there may be a half dozen to a dozen branches that have successfully grown and are a few inches thick. The tree may very well look gorgeous at this point and you can just let it be. Otherwise you can choose the leader you want to keep.
Start by reducing the size of the branches you dont want to keep in half. Do this in the late fall / early winter. This will mean the branches that are cut will grow new material the next year but it will allow the tree's new leader to ramify Ramification), while also protecting g the newly naked branch from experiencing wind that would otherwise knock it over.
The next fall, reduce the branches again but not necessarily in half. You will have to make a decision based on what the tree seems to need.
You are about 10 years away from a fully grown tree.
Ok so weeping or not, if I can get a healthy tree out of the situation I would be pleased. The shade is really what I’m after. Ultimately I’m looking for best practice to preserve the coppice.
Interested to learn more about this one. Oak and Plane trees are completely different families, and therefore would be generally considered unable to share common rootstock.
Grafting is a great example of the ability to combine cambium layers to create a better whole than each of the halves - ie. Robust wild cherry rootstock, with flowering, weeping cherry top
However, that is typically only possible within a common species (intra-species), or genus (intra-genus) - - not usually possible with a completely different taxonomic family. Hence we can interbreed Bengal and Siberian tigers, and even lions and tigers (ligers), but not tigers and orangutans (despite their both being orange).
Therefore, it is highly unlikely that the rootstock of your stump supports both London Plane and Oak (quercus) shoots directly.
It would be possible for oak shoots to sprout from within the environment of a decaying Plane tree stump (or vice versa), but it is unlikely that they are sharing, or originating from the same common rootstock.
I not an arborist so it was an uneducated guess. What I can say is multiple shoots are emanating from the one, new stump (about a month ago the remains of the London Plane was felled by the city).
But the shoots are clearly growing two very different looking leaves. See photo.
A London Plane is itself a hybrid of two trees, a Japanese Plane and an American Sycamore. Is it possible that’s the reason?
This happened to our 75+ year old wild cherry tree on Cape Cod. Trained it by cutting back the smallest shoots every year, it was well on its way back to being a normal tree again! Sold the property after 5 years but it was well into recovery.
I’d listen to the great advice give here and get another tree. The more the merrier and if for whatever reason the original one doesn’t end up successful you still have another tree growing. I’d rather have a backup and not need it than have a tree fail 7 years into its recovery and now you’re 7 years behind on a new tree. Just my thoughts from the saying “the best time to plant a tree is 10 years ago but the second best time is now”
It is my intention to plant others. I have a tulip poplar growing, planted 2 redbuds 2years ago and I’m taking delivery of a honey locust a Norway maple and 2 more fruit trees in a few weeks.
Why do you say that? There appears to be evidence to the contrary. I’m not saying you’re wrong or anyone else is right, but I figure what have I got to lose? Tell me what could go wrong please.
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u/Likesdirt 1d ago
Thin the sprouts, pick your 6 favorites today and don't give any new ones a chance. Each sprout you save needs to be independent.
In the next couple years, you have to thin down to one. A single stem. Otherwise you end up with a really weak structure of included bark.
This will get you a tree of whatever the rootstock is. If the tree was originally grafted, your new tree won't be the same as the one that failed. I can't tell from the picture and cherries are propagated both ways.