Suckering trees and shrubs
By Amy McDowell
In horticulture,
there’s one born every minute. And there I was in the front yard in the chilly
knee-deep February snow, pruning the suckers from around the base of my spring
snow crabapple. I had read that if you prune suckers during the winter months
they don’t grow back as quickly.
As the weather
warmed in spring, tiny red buds emerged at the base of the trunk, and soon
enough skinny suckers were growing up at the base of the tree again.
Exasperated, I realized I’d been had—the only thing that had delayed the new
shoots was winter.
Suckers are not
all bad. Most of my favorite shrubs have a suckering habit that results in a
broad mound of growth and a beautiful shape when mature. There are a great
number of suckering shrubs, including lilacs (Syringa species), Hydrangeas,
Spireas, pussy willow (Salix discolor), serviceberry (Amelanchier arborea) and
bottlebrush buckeye (Aesculus parviflora). Many of these form dense thickets
that create wonderful privacy when used as hedges. Frequently, you can dig the
suckers from around the base of the original plant and use them to extend
plantings around the garden.
Staghorn sumacs
(Rhus typhena) ablaze in red and orange right now, and elderberry (Sambucus
canadensis) sucker to form large, open colonies. Both are fairly aggressive for
a small garden, but regular lawn mowing at the edge of the colony is all that’s
needed to fight back their spread.
Suckers are a
sign of a plant’s genetic vigor. A non-suckering shrub like purple-leaf sand
cherry (Prunus cistena) can fall prey to collar rot in heavy clay soil, but if
it had the ability to sucker, young new stems would keep the shrub alive as the
older stems succumbed. If sand cherries suckered, it would vastly improve their
durability and longevity in central Iowa landscapes.
Despite all of
the great suckering plants out there, it’s still tough to come up with an
advantage to the raggedy suckers at the bases of crabapple trees. Tender rabbit
fodder, I guess, to slow their attacks on the tasty trunk bark.
