Poplar tree shoots in lawn
User
5 years ago
The scene of the crime: southern RI, zone 6, in my otherwise healthy lawn
Just the facts, ma'am- Last year I removed a dying poplar tree from the lawn- it went the way they usually do, one limb at a time over about 2 years until the trunk and limbs showed no signs of life and the leaves from the last remaining branches had turned brown and fallen. I removed the tree and had the stump ground up below grade.
There had always been an occasional shoot as in the photo, usually some distance from the parent tree. These I typically plucked. They apparently grow from the tree roots, which are quite shallow. Now that the tree is gone, there are many of these shoots, which if left alone will grow into new trees.
I've been trying to poison them with Roundup but it's difficult to avoid the surrounding grass. I made a collar out of plastic so I can isolate the stem of the shoot from the lawn but it's cumbersome and I'm afraid of damaging the surrounding grass. Anyone out there have a trick to deal with this issue?
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Devil Tree (white poplar) just won't die! Help!!!
Comments (9)big deal .. lol ... i cut down 3 poplars last year.. and the cut wood is still sprouting .... repeated spraying with roundup ... on anything the gets 6 inches tall .. will eventually kill it all ... basically .. until it dries out completely ... it will continue to try to survive ... my theory anyway ... i dont try to dig them out .... to much work .. go hunting about every 30 days ... you will win ... by the end of the year ... and then.. the million dormant seeds will start popping.. lol ... the more i think about it.. i think you are right.. its the devils tree ... ken...See MoreEastern Cottonwood Poplar...weed or tree?
Comments (53)I forgot exactly how fast it was growing earlier, it actually grows a half a inch a day but now it is in a "drought dormancy" because I have not watered in a while so it is currently not growing, and it has also lost some bottom leaves and has formed a temporary bud to conserve water because of the drought. If I water it some more it should come out of it. You can see we have the worst drought in the U.S. here in the southeast which we have had since spring And I over estimated its height, it is actually just over 4 feet tall. We have about 30 more days of growing season left before trees will start to go dormant for winter. So if I keep it watered it should reach over 5 feet by autumn. Eastern cottonwood trees have been known to grow 1.5 inches a day and maybe even 2 inches a day in superb conditions during the heat of the summer. They have been know to grow 16 feet in one year or one growing season. It has no branches yet but it should by next year. This cottonwood is a female and that's why I planted it in the woods where it will be great to view the yearly "snow" :) I'm planning on getting some cuttings of a old huge male cottonwood tree this spring to plant next to our yard in a tilled and mulched area 10 feet wide. It's going to be planted 40 feet out to give room for the huge burst of growth :-D so we can have a quick shade tree in 5 to 10 years in our barren yard plus many other tree types I'm going to plant in the yard from oaks to maples. How it currently looks today: Some of the leaves were huge, a couple of them were 12 inches long. Temporary bud it has formed because of the drought:...See MoreCross a Rabbit + Poplar Tree = Poison Eater
Comments (19)This message has kind of gotten hijacked from the original post to an argument over the risks/benefits of genetic engineering. Certainly genetically engineered crops are being developed to produce a marketable result (GM seeds) and side effects may not be of the utmost concern. However, an underlying theme of developing these crops is to reduce the potential side effects of other pesticides by reducing their use and substituting pesticides that are safer, non-toxic or less toxic to non-target species, and have a reduced potential to cause damage to non-target species or areas. There is the potential for Bt crops to kill Monarch caterpillers, however it is still probably less toxic than the alternatives. Bt crops do not produce a bug free field. Many species of insects are immune to Bt. Caterpillars are generally not immune to it. Insects that are not eating the corn are not a target of the Bt corn, and Monarchs do not eat the corn. The risk lies in the movement of corn pollen carrying the Bt to the Monarch's food source. Still, the bloom period for corn will run a couple weeks in the summer. The rest of the growing season, it is not shedding any Bt material. Thus, there is risk to non-target Monarch larvae for a couple weeks. Adults would not be harmed, just larvae during this period. Without Bt corn, the control of insect pests in the crop would generally require sprays or soil treatments that would kill a much broader spectrum of insects, including all adult Monarchs that might be in the field. Thus while the use of Bt crops might not be totally safe for non-target species, it is still probably much safer than the alternatives, and it is more effective on the target pests. Seems like a winning solution here--and with time it can still be improved. But if the early steps aren't profitable for the developers, they will never move on to develop even safer products down the road. With herbicide resistant crops, the plants are producing and carrying no pesticides. What the genes do is allow farmers to spray the crop with broad spectrum, low toxicity herbicides and the plant has the ability to deactivate the herbicide quickly so it suffers no damage. There are valid concerns with these technologies, however we need to explore them as they offer the potential to reduce the use of toxic pesticides and non-target damage dramatically compared to conventional technologies. When it comes to the potential for the bunny cottonwoods to spread by seed or cross into other poplars growing wild, Monsanto had techniques to render their genetically modified crop seeds sterile so they could not transfer into other plants, however that was killed with the help of those claiming that potential outcrossing was a terrible risk. Sometimes I think the anti-GM people are less interested in controlling the risks of GM technology than they are in finding issues to generate memberships and donations to feather their nests and perpetuate the discord....See MorePoplar tree dropping limbs
Comments (6)because the poplar family are light wooded... weak wooded... rather short lived trees [in tree years] ... made for forests, prairies, parks and golf courses ... where no one cares when they do this ... and at the size you note your has good age ... probably not as old as you might think based on there rather fast annual growth ... the problem i read into what you presented.. is that they might not be your trees .... since you say they are next to your lawn ... if they are yours.. you need an onsite inspection by a CERTIFIED arborist ... to decide if these things are safe.. or past their prime ... it might be time for them to go.. if they are threatening any structures.. or you ... otherwise... get used to this happening .... it might behoove us to get a proper ID on them ... ken...See More
User
5 years agoUser
5 years agodanielj_2009
5 years ago
Saypoint zone 6 CT
5 years ago
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