New growth from stump

[johnha]

I've searched but am possibly not using the right phrase. I took a few trees down on my property over the past 6 years that were in poor shape. Shame on me, if I had found this board first a couple of them may have been spared.

Anyway, I cut the stumps level with the ground and left them to rot out. One Ash and one red oak now have shoots several feet tall growing at the edge of the stumps.

I would like to keep them. Can I just allow these to grow as is or should I do something with the stump, etc?

Thanks.

 

[Rtom45]

I'd just let them go, let nature take its course.

 

[Sprig]

Agree, let 'em grow! In a few years you might want to pick out the nicest and thin the rest out with no guilt.

 

[Ekka]

The practice is called coppice and the stump is called a stool.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coppicing

But some species dont reshoot and some will reshoot but be unstable ... apparently oaks are OK but some of our eucs are suss.

 

[xtremetrees]

Good point Ekka didnt know that
Heres are some large trees that kinda fed off its parent tree stump. As the stump decayed it fed the suckers so after 100 years you have large trees with a hollow base.

 

[xtremetrees]

Another close by thats still holding
I suspect this whole bowl is hollow as a neighboring trees of same size was. To me the shape of the multistem is the signal.

 

[Ekka]

Gee xtreme, you need to get a tripod.:hmm3grin2orange:

Apparently those poplars rot a lot anyway, I have a video of a gum that was cut down to a stump, and a new tree grew ontop of it like suggested here.

The original stump and roots decayed and termites, the new outer growth only had 2 small roots and over she went.

So I'm a little biased toward the long term success of these things but apparently some species are OK ... however where I am we dont have oaks, beech's, birch, london plane and those types of "wierd" trees.

We got eucs, more eucs, these other things that look like eucs but the botanists say they're corymbia, angophera and lophostemon plus a bunch of tropical type stuff poinciana, palms, leopard trees etc.

They coppice a bunch of eucs near here for koala food. The koalas only like the young fresh new growth ... hmmm tasty. They rotate the cutting to keep a fresh supply but I wouldn't be too confident in growing strong new trees from them.

 

[treeseer]

xtreme, I don't think every stump sprout is hollow like the ones you showed.

 

[BlueRidgeMark]

Gee xtreme, you need to get a tripod.:hmm3grin2orange:

Hey, ya think? Maybe we should take up a collection for him!

 

[xtremetrees]

'They coppice a bunch of eucs near here for koala food"
Thats kool Ive never seem a coppice nor koala. How cool:biggrinbounce2:

 

[BlueRidgeMark]

They coppice a bunch of eucs near here for koala food. The koalas only like the young fresh new growth ... hmmm tasty. They rotate the cutting to keep a fresh supply .

That is absolutely brilliant. With all that mature root system to feed them, those shoots must just jump out of the stump. Great way to ensure a good food supply for the fuzzballs.