If your tree is slowly turning into a shrub by sending up tree suckers—a host of thin, upright branches from the base of the trunk or soil near the base of the tree—then here are some tips on why it might be happening and how to remove suckers from trees.
When it comes to my style of gardening, I tend to let Mother Nature take over and interfere as little as possible. But that doesn’t mean I don’t step in every now and then!
Suckers can make an area look unsightly and also take up resources and light from smaller perennials or annuals that grow beneath larger shrubs and trees.
But suckers can also be an indicator of a larger problem, and your tree is trying to tell you something. If you have suckers, don’t let them take over. Here’s how to trim them….and why you should!
This post will cover…
What Are Tree Suckers?
Trees are very good at what they do. Growing, that is. You often see suckers at the base of trees, tiny shoots that look like mini trees emerging. When overgrown, they create a shrub-like appearance. You may also see them emerge from the stump of a tree that has been cut down and continues to live.
Trees send up suckers as a reaction to stress. Your smart tree is putting up an effort to survive in a less-than-perfect environment. Those suckers are a way of multiplying, ensuring the lineage of the tree lives on. If the tree can’t survive, the suckers will grow in its place.
Why Do Tree Suckers Grow?
Suckers are often seen on urban trees that are planted in the “hell strip,” the strip of grass or garden between the street and the sidewalk. This strip is often a very stressful place for a tree to grow, with poor soil that is flanked by concrete. The soil gets compacted from the pressure on the paved surfaces, and the concrete generates a lot of additional heat.
Trees that have been growing in the hell strip will not thrive and produce as well as their counterparts in healthy soil with ample room for roots. These trees will often have more diseases and pests, and they send up suckers as a response to the stress they are under.
Drought is another reason why a tree might send up suckers. Upright branches from the base or upper branches as a result of drought conditions are called water sprouts. Water sprouts are the tree’s reaction to being thirsty.
A tree can also send up water sprouts and suckers as a result of improper pruning. A description of this is covered in this article on pruning.
How to Stop Tree Suckers
As much of a nuisance as they are, the issue is primarily aesthetic. The tree is calling out for help, and if you listen perhaps you can help by improving conditions for the tree. Test your soil to find any glaring issues in it that could be causing distress.
Most trees don’t need to be watered, but you may want to consider soaking your trees if they are young or your area is experiencing excessive heat. Poor pruning or a lack of pruning may be your other option for preventing more tree suckers from occurring.
If you can’t find a solution, you can simply choose to remove the suckers and keep up on the job as they appear. In some cases, like with older trees, this is not a bad solution.
You could provide more water, better soil, and prune more carefully, but as the tree ages, it will be more prone to suckers, and this may just be how you have to manage it for the foreseeable future.
Young trees, however, need more attention to the cause, as they shouldn’t be so stressed out at such a young age.
How to Remove Suckers From Trees
I have a couple of trees that I regularly will need to remove suckers from. My Corkscrew Hazel, Corylus avellana ‘Contorta’, has gorgeous contorted and twisted branches that look best when the leaves have fallen. It’s prone to suckers that hide the true beauty of the trunk of the tree, so they get chopped off regularly.
I like to use a hatchet or billhook saw to remove the suckers at the base.
Ideally, you want to get as close to the base as possible without cutting into the trunk. The nodes that send up more growth are located near where the suckers originate, so you need to remove those nodes in order to prevent regrowth. Otherwise, you will find yourself chopping down the same suckers over and over again.
Remove Suckers at the Base of a Trunk
To remove suckers at the base of a trunk, use a hatchet to hook around the suckers and pull them off. The blade will prune those that do not pull off more easily. Use pruners or the saw of the billhook saw to clean up any stubs that are leftover.
Remove Suckers Under Soil
To remove suckers under the soil, first try to pull them up. If they can easily be pulled off the roots, then you are likely to get the growth nodes as well. If not, use the tip of the hatchet to loosen the soil around the suckers. Then, use the hook under the soil to cut the stem.
The hatchet can also be used to quickly remove water sprouts that grow in the spring and summer. Use the hook blade to swiftly remove the water sprouts at the branch. Then use the hatchet to quickly chop the pieces for the compost or yard waste bin.
I prune my espalier apple tree in the fall each year after letting it grow quite steadily throughout the summer. I use bypass pruners to remove the thinner branches, the billhook saw for the larger branches, and then quickly chop them up to fit in the green waste bin using the hatchet.
Here is my espalier apple before:
You can see it’s such a beauty once it’s all cleaned up and tidy for the fall. Here is the after:
These tools can also be used for cutting back unruly and overgrown brush, removing tree roots from the soil, and dividing perennials.
FAQ About Tree Suckers
You can use herbicide to kill suckers and prevent them from regrowing, but I avoid the use of herbicide in my garden completely. It can affect the tree itself and surrounding plants, as well as interfere with the local ecosystem.
Instead, I try to prevent them by caring for the tree accordingly and get a good understanding of the growth cycle. And if they still shoot up, then I just prune them accordingly.
If your original tree isn’t doing well or has bad form, you can try to cut back all but the sucker. A sucker or a water spout is simply one of the tree’s fast growing branches, so it will have the same root system.
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