In article , BigKev
wrote:

Hi - I have a small maple in the middle of my lawn that has failed to
doanything much and it must go.

If I cut the trunk (which is only a couple of inches thick) to thebase,
how do I stop it re-shooting?-- BigKev

Physical removal of the sprouts is the only thing guaranteed to work in
the very long run (about three years). The various chemical methods are
not worth the risks for the slight effect, as shoots will almost certainly
still appear perhaps fewer in number and still require manual removal for
three years. But if you insist on chemicalizing the yard, a sprouting tree
requires "translocation" herbicides that do more than blacken the leaves
and get some of the living root as well -- maples, cherries, elms can even
start sprouting ten or fifteen feet away along the surface roots if the
parent trunk is gone.

Grinding the stump flat to the ground so shoots can be mowed is in some
environments useful. Occasionally a well-sprouted maple stump makes an
attractive multi-stemmed shrub, pruned for looks, always removing any
upright branch that is trying to become a leader, since if a new tree
arises from a stump it tends to be susceptible to disease and blow-down.
If your maple was a grafted cultivar, the rootstock won't be the same tree
(many Japanese maple cultivars are grafted onto "wild" or old-cultivar
greenleaf Japanese maple rootstock) so the sprouts trained as a shrub will
be more vigorous than the failed cultivar. If it's a wild silver maple or
the like it'll be the same tree except shrubby without a central trunk.

-paghat the ratgirl
--
visit my temperate gardening website:
http://www.paghat.com
visit my film reviews website:
http://www.weirdwildrealm.com