TOO many Ash Tree saplings! - Ask Extension
Hi there,
I have 2 large Ash Trees in my front yard that have slowly started dying. Over the past few years, I've noticed these thick branches spro...
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TOO many Ash Tree saplings! #789763
Asked May 08, 2022, 2:09 PM EDT
Hi there,
I have 2 large Ash Trees in my front yard that have slowly started dying. Over the past few years, I've noticed these thick branches sprouting up in my garden. I've tried to remove but the roots almost seem impossible to remove. Fast forward to this year. I literally have 50-100 of them now in my garden, back yard, and along the sides of my house. I asked on some local groups what these were. Half said bamboo but the characteristics match the Ash Tree much more. They have made it impossible to maintain my back yard and I'm worried about the havoc they could be wrecking near utility lines and my homes foundation. Is there an easy way to remove these? They vary in height from 1 ft to 7 ft.
Harford County Maryland
Expert Response
These do look like they could be Ash suckers and/or seedlings. (Suckers are root sprouts that tend to be harder to remove via pulling then a seedling, especially since their roots are the same as the main tree's roots. Roots can extend dozens of feet away from a mature tree's trunk, so suckers can potentially appear over a wide area.) Ash is very vulnerable to and has been dying region-wide from an invasive beetle called Emerald Ash Borer. It's likely your trees have contracted this pest, though an assessment by a certified arborist would confirm this.
Although the behavior of the suckers is similar to the spreading stem growth on bamboo, these do not have bamboo foliage or stems and we do not see bamboo in the photos.
Stressed trees, including those dying from wood-boring insect outbreaks, tend to produce a bumper crop of suckers. The only way to remove them without killing what remains of the parent tree is to physically cut them down or pull/dig them up when found. Younger ones will be much easier to deal with than those old enough to have reached 7 feet high or so. You cannot use herbicide unless you intend to remove the entire mature tree, because any herbicide that will have a significant impact will be systemic (absorbed and moved into roots), which won't discriminate between sucker growth and parent tree growth.
If you do have the two parent trees removed, the suckers will eventually stop regrowing once the ash root system that's left in the ground decays. Promptly removing any suckers that appear in the meantime will help to starve-out any energy reserves those roots have left, shortening the amount of time that sucker growth can reappear. You may see mushroom growth in future years as that underground wood decays, but those fungi will not harm any live garden plants.
Miri
Although the behavior of the suckers is similar to the spreading stem growth on bamboo, these do not have bamboo foliage or stems and we do not see bamboo in the photos.
Stressed trees, including those dying from wood-boring insect outbreaks, tend to produce a bumper crop of suckers. The only way to remove them without killing what remains of the parent tree is to physically cut them down or pull/dig them up when found. Younger ones will be much easier to deal with than those old enough to have reached 7 feet high or so. You cannot use herbicide unless you intend to remove the entire mature tree, because any herbicide that will have a significant impact will be systemic (absorbed and moved into roots), which won't discriminate between sucker growth and parent tree growth.
If you do have the two parent trees removed, the suckers will eventually stop regrowing once the ash root system that's left in the ground decays. Promptly removing any suckers that appear in the meantime will help to starve-out any energy reserves those roots have left, shortening the amount of time that sucker growth can reappear. You may see mushroom growth in future years as that underground wood decays, but those fungi will not harm any live garden plants.
Miri
