Little Trees Sprouting from Roots?

9 years ago

Hi,

It's summer here in Phoenix and I have been watering the lawn a lot (20 minutes in the early morning 2-3 days/week). Since I've been doing this I've noticed these little "trees" popping up in the yard. I've probably seen 6-8 in the last month or so. When I pull them out I find they are all attached large roots (maybe 1" to 2" in diameter). I guess these are large roots from other trees in the yard. Anyway, is this normal? I've never seen it before (new house, this is the first summer we've spent here). Is there some way I can prevent this from happening? Or do I just need to continue ripping them off their roots when they pop up?

Featured Answer

dchall_san_antonio

9 years ago

I have several observations. First one is about your trees. Root sprouts are pretty normal in hot areas where the trees are dying. Your trees are dying from lack of water. You should be watering once every 5 days at most. And that should be a long drink of water so that the moisture sinks down to where your tree roots are. Get some small tuna or cat food cans and time how long it takes your sprinkler to fill the cans. That's how long you should be watering.

Second, what kind of grass is that? It is not St Augustine so that makes bermuda a likely candidate. Bermuda should be mowed at 1 inch high. Also if it is bermuda, you have far too much shade for it. That makes St Augustine your only choice for that yard. You don't have to kill out the bermuda to transition to St Augustine. All you have to do is put a few pieces of St Aug in and continue doing what you're doing - or rather what you should be doing. Give it deep water and mow every 2-3 weeks at your mower's highest setting and it will kill out the bermuda in a year.

Third, is that nutgrass I see in the right corner of the picture? That grass only grows in swampy land. That is another sign that you're watering wrong.

Fourth, getting back to the tree, at the base of the tree can you see where the roots flare out away from the trunk? If not then your tree is buried too deep. That kind of stress on the tree is another reason you see root sprouts coming up. Further indication the tree is dying. You can often reverse this dying condition (assuming it's there) by washing the soil away from the tree trunk until the root flare is visible. Do what you have to do to keep that soil away or else let the tree die and replace it.

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Comments (15)

amoncur
Original Author
9 years ago
Another picture that might be helpful in diagnosing...
amoncur
Original Author
9 years ago
Another picture that might be helpful in diagnosing...this shows one of the roots the little trees are growing from.
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Toronado3800 Zone 6 St Louis
9 years ago
Good guess. What other trees do you have? My neighbor says his Locust does that.

I would remove manually instead of using poison in case the round up or whatever travels through the roots to the mama tree.
lazy_gardens
9 years ago
Those stupid mulberry trees are prone to doing that ... all you can do is keep pulling them up.
agrocoders
9 years ago
At first I was going to say a type of juglans (hickory / walnut) but after seeing a better picture of the more rounded leaflets I think it is a locust and they are known to throw out suckers.

For the tree stump I would dig out around the stump, use an ax & shovel to cut away as much as you could without damaging you patio and pour table salt around the stump and fill in the hole with soil and gravel. When it rain the truck will drink the salt and kill it if it's not salt hardy.
amoncur
Original Author
9 years ago
Hi All, thank you so much for the comments. I am learning a lot!

It is indeed bermuda grass in my backyard - that is very common here in AZ and seems to be what everyone uses during the summer (during the winter we transition to rye grass).

dchall - you mentioned the trees may be dying from lack of water. I am actually watering 3 times per week Sun, Tues, & Fri @ 3:00am) for 20 minutes each time. It seems like this should be sufficient, but I will try your tuna can test.

The majority of the yard is in direct sun for most of the day. There are only a few areas that are shaded during the middle of the day. As for the nutgrass, I'm not sure what that is.

I've included a picture of the backyard below. There are probably 6 or 8 root sprouts popping out right now, so it seems to be getting worse as I just pulled them all out not a week ago. There are a lot of trees back there, so I'm not sure which ones the roots sprouts are attached to.
amoncur
Original Author
9 years ago
Here is another picture showing the tree in the middle of the yard. The root flare is visible there.
dchall_san_antonio
9 years ago
Root flare looks good.

I saw your watering program in the first post. You are not deep watering. Trees need deep water, especially deep in your area. Even normal lawn watering can sometimes not be enough for trees depending on what they are. All you're doing is wetting the surface.
amoncur
Original Author
9 years ago
I do have bubblers around the trees. How long should I let them run? Right now they are just running for 20 minutes 3 times per week like the rest of the lawn. What would you suggest?
amoncur
Original Author
9 years ago
I do have bubblers around the trees. How long should I let them run? Right now they are just running for 20 minutes 3 times per week like the rest of the lawn. What would you suggest? 30min? 40 min? More?
dchall_san_antonio
9 years ago
I would suggest watering out at the tree's drip line for at least a full hour once a week. I like soaker hoses. If it was my tree I would put a soaker out at the drip line and turn it on to a trickle (as measured at the faucet) for a full week. At that rate the soil will soften but you won't see much in the way of water spraying out of the soaker. It just barely leaks out. This is the sort of deep watering the tree needs. When you just water the grass at the surface, the tree will suffer.

A trickle is about 1 cup per minute measured dripping out of the faucet.
amoncur
Original Author
9 years ago
Thank you so much for the reply. So even in hot Arizona summers you think 1 hour once per week is enough for the trees?
amoncur
Original Author
9 years ago
Well I am still getting these sprouters...I have changed my watering schedule to once every 4 days (sprinklers set for long enough to pass the cat food can test, and drip set for 1.25 hour). Is there something I can do to gauge the health of the trees? It seems like they are still health (full canopy of leaves, green) and if that's the case maybe there is another reason for getting these sprouters other than dying trees. What do you think?
amoncur
Original Author
9 years ago
Bump...