Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum
ALMOST BEEKEEPING - RELATED TOPICS => GARDENING AROUND THE HOUSE => Topic started by: buzzbee on September 06, 2010, 10:09:30 pm
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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.
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I don't know much about pears or plums, but I do know there's a sucker born every minute :-D
Scott
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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 ;)
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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.
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These seem to come from the joint where the rootstock may have been grafted to the top.
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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.
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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.
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Brushy thicket,that is exactly what would happen without constant trimming. Thanks everyone.