Hello,
We had a red maple in our backyard up until about a year ago. During a
strong windstorm, the tree was blown over. Upon further inspection, the
trunk was damaged from some type of insect or simply rotted out. Whatever
the reason, I was devastated to see that our maple was no more. We live in
a pretty new neighborhood, so even though this tree was only about 15 feet
high with about a 10" diameter trunk, it was the biggest in our yard.

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? Can I just let it go and it
will grow into a new tree? Or will it cause problems in the future?

Thanks in advance!
Ryan
--
Remove "yourpants" to reply!

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


******* Remove NOSPAM to reply *******

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. Upon further inspection, the
trunk was damaged from some type of insect or simply rotted out. Whatever
the reason, I was devastated to see that our maple was no more. We live in
a pretty new neighborhood, so even though this tree was only about 15 feet
high with about a 10" diameter trunk, it was the biggest in our yard.

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? Can I just let it go and it
will grow into a new tree? Or will it cause problems in the future?

Thanks in advance!
Ryan

I've seen this happen with an American chestnut tree. It fell and
tree sprouts emerged from the trunk. I'd pick the strongest sprout
and keep cutting off the rest.

You can usually see many examples of this kind of "rejuvination" in the
woods...trees completly knocked over, or broken down, with new "trees" that
have come back and replace the originals. My take is to let it go...what
have you got to loose?

S


"Ryan Sullivan" wrote in message
...
Hello,
We had a red maple in our backyard up until about a year ago. During a
strong windstorm, the tree was blown over. Upon further inspection, the
trunk was damaged from some type of insect or simply rotted out. Whatever
the reason, I was devastated to see that our maple was no more. We live
in
a pretty new neighborhood, so even though this tree was only about 15 feet
high with about a 10" diameter trunk, it was the biggest in our yard.

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? Can I just let it go and
it
will grow into a new tree? Or will it cause problems in the future?

Thanks in advance!
Ryan
--
Remove "yourpants" to reply!