Garden

[Mom2Dogs]

My neighbor has a tree that is dead although it has leaves (verhy sparse) every year.  It is odd because it drops leaves all the time, all over my yard and driveway, but continues to put out leaves every year...but I am going to assume it is dead...it looks unhealtny, nothing green about it.

Fast forward to earlier this summer, we started having these odd looking weeds grow in the yard..similar to what this neighbor has in her yard.  Weed control company was at our house today and long story short, after talking with him he ways it is from her tree.

I am going to talk to her and see if she will take it down, her dad can cut it down with a chain saw, it is not a big tree.

The question is...do the roots continue to grow even if the tree is removed?  I think she will need to have the stump ground, but again not sure if that will kill the roots that are under the ground...Does anyone know the answer to the question?

She is single, has her share of stress, and I want to approach her with as much correct information as possible,  I don't want to overwhelm her and then have her do a lot of calling to find out what she needs to do about the root.   

thanks

[Mary Bailey]

@Mom2Dogs      Some years ago we took out a crab apple tree in our front yard.  It kept putting up those (whatever they are called? runners?) 

We just kept using pruners and clipped them down to the grass.  Eventually they stopped coming up.

I was watching some yard crashing show on HGTV - they call those trees: Zombie trees when they are virtually dead on the inside.  

[Mom2Dogs]

@Mary Bailey   My luck it will fall on my house!

[Mary Bailey]

@Mom2Dogs   Oh no!  I hope not.  

[debfau]

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@Mom2Dogs wrote:

My neighbor has a tree that is dead although it has leaves (verhy sparse) every year.  It is odd because it drops leaves all the time, all over my yard and driveway, but continues to put out leaves every year...but I am going to assume it is dead...it looks unhealtny, nothing green about it.

Fast forward to earlier this summer, we started having these odd looking weeds grow in the yard..similar to what this neighbor has in her yard.  Weed control company was at our house today and long story short, after talking with him he ways it is from her tree.

I am going to talk to her and see if she will take it down, her dad can cut it down with a chain saw, it is not a big tree.

The question is...do the roots continue to grow even if the tree is removed?  I think she will need to have the stump ground, but again not sure if that will kill the roots that are under the ground...Does anyone know the answer to the question?

She is single, has her share of stress, and I want to approach her with as much correct information as possible,  I don't want to overwhelm her and then have her do a lot of calling to find out what she needs to do about the root.   

thanks

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Here is what Google says - No, the roots do not need to be physically removed. Once you cut down the tree, the roots lose their energy source and die. They will slowly break down and rot underground on their own over a few years.

[SilleeMee]

The little 'trees' growing in your lawn are called suckers or shoots. Even after the 'mother tree' has been cut down the suckers will continue to sprout in your lawn. About the only way to reduce their numbers is to cut the suckers close to the ground and then apply an herbicide directly onto the cut stem. You'll have to keep doing that until eventually the mother root runs out of energy to keep sending out suckers in that area. It's happened to my yard before. Took a few years to eventually get rid of them. It was a crab apple tree that as cut down but the roots were not removed. 

[Mom2Dogs]

@SilleeMee  and @debfau   thanks...that was basically what I needed to know..so do you think she would have to go to the expense of having the stump ground down?

[debfau]

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@Mom2Dogs wrote:

@SilleeMee  and @debfau   thanks...that was basically what I needed to know..so do you think she would have to go to the expense of having the stump ground down?

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I would say no and see how it goes the first year - if it sends out a lot of shoots, then drill hole in stump and get stuff to kill stump/roots sooner.

[SilleeMee]

@Mom2Dogs 

A root grind doesn't always stop the suckers from coming up. A root grind just removes the trunk and only part of the root system close to the surface. The deeper roots will remain alive until they run out of energy. Root grinding costs a few hundred dollars. Most people just leave the trunk.

[SilleeMee]

One of my friends is an arborist and he had me use table salt on freshly cut smaller elm trunks to kill them. The salt goes into the cut stems and gets absorbed into the roots and then they die. I would dump a bunch of salt on the cut trunk right away and see what happens.

I poured a bunch of salt on a cut maple trunk, a big one. No shoots came out of that trunk after that. I never did a root grind on it either. It was thoroughly dead.