On Mon, 16 Jun 2003 19:21:36 -0400, "Ryan Sullivan"
wrote:

Hello,
We had a red maple in our backyard up until about a year ago. During a
strong windstorm, the tree was blown over.


I ended up disposing of the tree, but left the stump. After a long summer,
lots of shoots had grown out of the stump. It now looks like a little bush.
My question is this - is the new "tree" viable?

I had a similar experience, but with a smaller Silver Maple. A wind
storm broke it off about 18" from the ground one summer. The trunk
was maybe two inches in diameter. I didn't get around to doing
anything about it and new sprouts grew. I let it go. The next spring
I chose the best looking shoot and trimmed all but that shoot off.
Fifteen or sixteen years later you can't tell that anything had
happened. It matches the other trees along the lane. What is
interesting though is that it was again one of the weakest trees when
we had a freak October snow here in central PA this past autumn. It
lost more branches than the other Maples although none were immune to
the weight of the snow covered leaves.

RWL


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