Written by Admin and published on https://blog.davey.com/.

Whether it’s a hardwood or softwood, all trees have roots. Roots are designed to collect nutrients and water from the surrounding soil while also stabilizing trees.

As a result, most trees have a subterranean root system that grows underground. There are times, however, when a tree’s roots may grow above ground.

Removing Tree Roots Above Ground: Will It Harm or Kill the Tree?

Roots stretch far and wide to give our trees a stable foundation. But what happens if they grow a little further than we’d like?

One of our readers, Paul, recently asked, “How can I get rid of the
roots from my tree that have grown into my front yard and are killing
the grass?”

Dealing with roots can be tricky—an improper cut could affect the
tree’s water flow or cause it to fall in a storm. That’s why it’s
important to take a safe approach.

Read on to learn if you can prune above-ground tree roots, how many
tree roots you can cut at once and how to safely prune tree roots at the
best time.  

Cutting Tree Roots Above Ground – Everything You Need to Know

If I cut a root, will the tree die?

It all depends on the size and location of the tree root.

As a guideline, avoid pruning roots more than 2 inches wide. Removing
large tree roots can make the tree unstable or unhealthy later on. If
large roots are removed, the tree may not be able to get enough
nutrients and water. Also, don’t remove roots close or fused to the
trunk since these are critical to the tree’s structure.

What’s the best time of year to cut tree roots?

If you choose to cut or remove tree roots, winter and early spring are the best time of year to do so.

How many tree roots can I cut?

Never remove more than 20 percent of above-ground tree roots at once.
Then, wait two to three years to make sure your tree fully recovers.
Only then can you safely consider cutting more tree roots.

How can I cut tree roots without killing the tree?

Again, if you cut tree roots, there is never a guarantee that it
won’t hurt or eventually kill the tree. We only recommend removing tree
roots when they are damaging or infringing on a nearby structure – not
for aesthetic reasons.

For the best chance of your tree surviving, consult with your local arborist before removing tree roots. Or see if your arborist can prune the roots for you.

For DIY root cutting, use this step-by-step guide.

1. Find the root posing an issue and trace it back to the base of your
   tree. If it turns out to be part of a large root, ask your arborist
   before pruning or cutting. For a smaller root, move to step 2.

2. Measure the diameter of your tree. Wrap a measuring tape around the
   tree, four feet from the tree’s base. Then, divide that number by 3.14.
   Generally, you can safely prune roots that are 3-5 times the diameter
   away from your tree. So, if your tree has a diameter of 3 feet, only cut
   tree roots 9-15 feet away from the tree.

3. Mark the area you’ll cut, and dig a hole all the way around the root until it is completely exposed.
4. Use a root saw to prune the tree. Carefully pull the root up and
   away from the tree until it comes out. Be sure to refill the hole with
   soil from the same area afterward.

5. Keep an eye on your tree for a few weeks after pruning. Signs of
   decline like yellow leaves or branch death call for an arborist’s
   immediate attention.

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Tree suckers are a nuisance for many homeowners and green thumbs.
Also known as basal shoots, they consist of new shoots that emerge from
the base of a tree’s trunk.

They are called “tree suckers” because they literally suck and consume valuable water and nutrients, restricting the main tree’s growth.

Once tree suckers begin growing, the tree will receive less water and fewer nutrients, resulting in increased stress and potentially death.

Tree Sucker Management on Landscape Trees 

If you have noticed weak, shrubby growth around the base of a
tree in your yard, these stems aren’t the result of germinating seeds or
weeds – they are suckers. Suckers are small twigs or stems that grow up
from a tree’s roots, often near the trunk. Suckers can pose issues to
your tree, so control of them is often necessary. 

Sucker Basics

Suckers can grow in at time,
but spring and early summer are typically when you will notice the most
heavy sucker growth simply because the entire tree is in its main
growth cycle. 

Damage and Concerns

Suckers aren’t just harmless twigs – their quick growth siphons
away energy, nutrients, and water from the canopy overhead. This in
turn can weaken a tree. Further, increased sucker production can
indicate that a tree is under stress and trying to quickly produce new
growth to account for the stresses in the canopy. Common causes of tree
stress include pest pressures, disease, and cultural issues like drought
or nutrient deficiency. 

Susceptible Trees

Some types of trees are more susceptible to sucker growth than
others. Grafted trees, for example, often produce suckers from the
original root stock to compete with the graft. Other popular landscapes
with tendencies to sucker include locusts, beeches, forsythia, and some
maple varieties. If you have susceptible trees on your property, sucker
management may be an annual necessity. 

Sucker Removal

Suckers can, fortunately, be removed without any damage or stress to the tree. 

Pruning Methods

The simplest way to manage suckers is to cut them off as soon
as you notice one emerging. The goal is to remove the suckers when they
are still young and easy to cut, before they develop woody bark. You can
use a clean, sharp knife or pruning shears to cut the suckers off just
below the soil surface. The closer that you can cut to the base of the
sucker, the less likely it is to regrow. 

Root Removal

Sometimes suckers come up from trees you have already had
removed or from roots growing a fair distance from the parent tree. If
you have suckers coming up from an old stump or the remains of a removed
tree’s root system, you may need to have the old stump or root ball
removed to stop sucker growth. 

If suckers are repeatedly coming up from a root far from the
tree, a tree service can sometimes remove the problem root without
compromising the health of the main tree. 

Sucker Prevention

Suckers can sometimes be prevented or at least their growth can
be lessened, which is helpful if you have a tree that is a prolific
sucker producer. 

Mulch Application

Mulch can sometimes suppress sucker growth, particularly with
suckers that grow from far flung roots as opposed to right against the
tree trunk. Start by removing any suckers that are currently present and
then lay down a layer of plastic or fabric mulch. Then, cover the
plastic or fabric with layer, a few inches deep, of wood chip mulch.
Make sure none of the mulch actually touches the trunk. 

Chemical Controls

Growth inhibitors are another option for minimizing sucker
growth, but they must be used cautiously. These inhibitors can stop
sucker growth for up to three months, but the most effective varieties
can only be purchased and applied by a professional tree service. These
products are sprayed on the cutting wound that is made when the suckers
are pruned off. The inhibitor will soak into the remaining sucker bud
and prevent it from regrowing. 

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Written by Admin and published on https://www.hellis.biz/.

If your landscape is being overrun with tall, fast-growing trees, you may feel compelled to cut off the top.

Known as tree topping, it’s become a common solution for homeowners and business owners struggling to control their landscape.

While tree topping may sound effective, you should think twice before proceeding with it.
Tree Topping vs Pruning: What’s the Difference?

Upon reading the definition of tree topping, many people assume that tree topping is the same as pruning. After all, both tree topping and pruning involve cutting trees to remove some of their branches.

Why Topping Trees is a Bad Idea

Introduction

Topping trees is a widespread practice that appears to offer a short
term solution to a perceived problem. In reality, it is detrimental to
the health of the tree and creates problems in the long term. The
following explains why topping trees is a bad idea.

What is Topping?

Topping is ‘the indiscriminate cutting back of tree branches to stubs
or lateral branches that are not large enough to assume the lead role’
(International Society of Arboriculture).

The most common reasons given for topping are:

• to reduce the size of a tree
• to allow more light into a property
• to reduce the number of leaves that fall in autumn

Homeowners sometimes feel that their trees have become too big and worry that they may pose a risk.

The irony is that topping is carried out with the intention of
reducing the tree’s height in order to either make it safer or permit
more light into the property, but it will in fact have the opposite
effect and both increase the likelihood of failure and obscure more
light.

How Topping Creates Hazards

After topping, multiple shoots develop within the end 20-25cm of the remaining branches.

Normal branches develop in a ‘socket’ of overlapping wood tissues but
these new shoots are only anchored in the surface layers of their new
parent branches. These new shoots grow very rapidly as the tree attempts
to restore the balance between the root system and the crown.

The end result is that, in just a few years, the tree is back to the
size it was, before it was topped; only it will have an increased crown
density and the new shoots will be prone to failing in strong winds.

Why Topping Creates Physiological Stress

Removing the trees branches removes the trees
leaves and removing the trees leaves removes the trees ability to
produce food. Removing the ability to produce food places the tree under
severe physiological stress.

• A tree under stress is more vulnerable to attack by pests and
  diseases. Pests by themselves are seldom responsible for the death of a
  tree; however, in a weakened condition the tree may fail as a
  consequence.
• Large, open pruning wounds expose the wood to decay and the tree may
  lack sufficient resources to chemically “defend” the wounds against
  invasion by fungi.

Topping Causes Decay

The preferred location to make a pruning cut is just beyond the branch collar at the branch’s point of attachment; please see ‘Natural Target Pruning – How and Where to Remove a Branch’. The tree is biologically equipped to close such a wound provided the tree is healthy enough and the wound is not too large.

Cuts made along a limb, between lateral branches, create stubs with
wounds that the tree may not be able to close. The exposed wood tissues
begin to decay.

Normally a tree will “wall off” or compartmentalise the decaying
tissues. But few trees can defend the multiple severe wounds caused by
topping. The decay organisms are given a free path to move down through
the branches.

The Cost of Topping

The initial cost of topping a tree is the sum of
money paid to the contractor for doing the work. The subsequent costs
may include:

• If the tree survives, it will either need to be reduced again in a
  few years time or resulting storm damage from shoot failure will have to
  be cleaned up.
• If the tree dies it will have to be removed.
• Topped trees are prone to breaking and can be Topping is not
  considered to be an acceptable pruning practice therefore any damage
  caused by branch failure, from a topped tree, may lead to a finding of
  negligence in a court of law.
• Healthy, well maintained trees can add 5 -18% to the value of a Damaged and possibly diseased trees are a financial liability.

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Written by Jonathan Landsman and published on https://www.thespruce.com/.

Have you discovered water sprouts growing on one or more trees in your landscape?

With their erratic growth patterns, water sprouts aren’t particularly attractive. They tend to grow outward in a variety of directions, resulting in a messy and unkempt appearance.

To make matters worse, water sprouts are highly susceptible to disease and pests.

The thin shoots originating from a tree’s trunk attract disease-causing microbes as well as wood-devouring pests.

For an attractive and healthy landscape, you should remove the water sprouts while also taking preventative measures to keep them from reappearing.

Recognizing and Controlling Watersprouts in Trees and Shrubs

When a landscape tree or large shrub begins to send out strange, out-of-character growth shoots from the trunk or from older established limbs, you are likely dealing with a growth phenomenon known as watersprouts. They tend to grow with uncanny speed, sometimes in clusters from a single point. Most homeowners have an instinctive wish to prune away these strange, disfiguring growths, which is precisely the right impulse to follow. In practical terms, watersprouts can be considered the above-ground version of the suckering shoots that sometimes pop up around the base of trees and shrubs. And like those in-ground suckers, watersprouts should be pruned away—unless you want to try your hand as using them in grafting.

Why Watersprouts Appear

Watersprouts are the growth shoots originating from growth nodes either
on the surface or buried in the old wood of a plant. The new growth is
very thin relative to the parent branch and the joint between the sprout
and branch is quite weak. Like a sucker, the watersprout wood is
juvenile and fast-growing, fed on the water and nutrients provided by
the established parent wood.

Though they happen naturally, and rather frequently in some species,
watersprouts are generally regarded as something gone wrong.
Waterstprouts originate from old buds often invisible buried in the old
wood. In nature, suckers and watershoots perhaps offer a means by which a
badly damaged plant can survive, but in landscape use, watersprouts are
considered a waste of energy that diverts growth from the main plant.

Because watersprouts are tender, young growth shoots, some people
believe them to be a vulnerable access point for pathogen attacks. In a
commercial orchard, watersprouts are an unwelcome nuisance, since they
break the good architecture of the tree with weak wood that doesn’t bear
any fruit. In a residential landscape, watersprouts disfigure the
classic look and shape of a tree or shrub. For the most part,
watersprouts don’t cause harm but are an aesthetic problem. We usually
remove them just because they seem ugly and out of place.

Recognizing a Watersprout

Thin growth, especially clusters of thin growth, that originate from spots where there does not seem to be a node or bud are known as suckers. Suckers generally don’t occur on younger wood, where the buds are at the surface and under control of hormones dictating healthy growing patterns. The term sucker is usually reserved for the type of shoots that grow up through the ground from roots.

When these new shoots erupt from older above-ground wood—the trunk or older branches—they are known as watersprouts.
Watersprouts, like suckers, often bolt for the sun. When protruding
from the top of a branch, they are strangely upright, fast-lengthening
stems that break the architecture of a good scaffold branch. When they
come from the trunk or a vertical branch, they will sometimes curl
upright rather than stretch out.

Preventing Watersprouts

Although there are some plant species that are natural producers of
suckers and watersprouts, most plants are more likely to produce them if
they are under stress or badly pruned. To reduce the likelihood of
watersprouts, maintain the good pruning practices recommended for your
tree or shrub. Factors that can cause watersprouts include: 

• A heading cut on a large branch, where a short stump is left remaining rather than cutting it flush to the trunk, is almost guaranteed to produce watersprouts near its tip. Cutting a major branch back to its base may still cause some sprouting around the wound.
• Excessive pruning that exceeds the 1/3 rule (pruning away more than one-third of a plant’s branches) makes watersprouts more likely.
• Major die-back, of any kind, such as the type created by extended drought or winter kill, can cause a plant to erupt with watersprouts.
• A wound to the trunk may cause sprouting around the wound. For example, a boulevard tree struck by a car may soon develop waterspouts near the torn bark.

How to Prune Watersprouts

Most of the time, you’ll be removing watersprouts as waste wood. There
is no skill to it; just cut them off any convenient way. For first-year
sprouts, it is not important to make a clean cut at the base because the
wounds from removing these are minor and will heal quickly. If you
catch the shoots very early, you can even rub them off with a thumb.
They are weak and easily detach.

Sprouts that have hardened (older than a year) do need to be trimmed at
the base off with the cutting tools appropriate for their
thicknesses—pruners, lopping shears, or saw. When the watersprouts are
high in the tree, this can be a difficult task best left to
professionals.

Using Watersprouts in Grafting

While they are a detriment to mature, established plants where you want fast growth to occur only at the tips, watersprouts provide the shoots to use as scions in grafting procedures. By using watersprouts, it is possible to get young cuttings from a tree without going high into the crown. One-year-old wood is typically the ideal material for scions. The wood found suckers and watersprouts is juvenile wood and is thus fast-healing and fast-growing. It is also thin and flexible, ideal for many types of grafts.

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Written by Admin and published on https://gradeatree.com/.

When designing your home’s landscape, you should consider adding trees.

Some homeowners assume trees should be excluded from their landscape, believing they consume valuable space while offering little or no benefits in the process.

While trees certainly require space to grow, however, it’s a small price to pay. With trees growing in your landscape, you’ll experience the five following benefits.

Benefits of Planting Trees in Your Yard

While you probably think about planting trees for Arbor Day,
you may not know just how much of an impact tree planting can have on
your lawn and energy consumption as well as the environment.

Trees can provide shade for your home and lawn as well as a barrier
against cold winter winds. They also filter water and air to reduce soil
erosion and greenhouse gases. But can all these benefits of
planting trees actually be seen in your yard?

Energy-saving benefits of planting trees

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, a young,
healthy tree can provide a net cooling effect equivalent to ten
room-sized air conditioners operating for 20 hours a day! While it will
take a few years for a newly planted sapling to reach the point where it
can cast shade on your home, it’s a relatively low-cost investment, and
you’ll find it’s worth the wait.

Benefit of trees on the environment

While planting trees can certainly have a positive impact on your
energy bill, sustainable gardening can also positively impact the
environment.Trees absorb greenhouse gases like nitrogen dioxide, sulfur
dioxide, ozone, carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide. They also convert
carbon dioxide to oxygen through photosynthesis. Wondering how that
relates to you? Just one tree can clean about 330 pounds of carbon
dioxide from the air each year, according to the U.S. Forest Service,
which provides enough oxygen for a family of four!

Maintaining your trees and lawn

Trees are beneficial to the aesthetics of your lawn, your home’s energy bill, and your family’s overall health. For all these reasons, it’s important to properly maintain your trees and the soil they grow in. You don’t want to over-shape new trees or prune too much when you first plant them, but you will have a much healthier tree if you trim back dead branches over the years. That’s when you call us!!

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