While y'all are focused on burning everything you see!

I'm here trying to save a tree or ten! Anyways, the back story, I have a cottonwood in our front yard that shades the ENTIRE house, it's HUGE! I'd like to ask the experts on here, how to get rid of the suckers, I've cut them down probably 6 times (as close to the tree as I can) and they keep coming back! Is there anything I can do to stop it without killing the tree?

Also I have 9 Apple trees, they were planted 4 years ago as bare roots, I put the plastic around them to protect the trunks, and of course after 4 years in the sun they got brittle and started breaking up. So I took everything off today. My question to you, is it necessary to put more plastic on them? I like to keep the trimmed for weeds nice and close with the weed whip and mostly had the plastic for that purpose. Also when I took the plastic protectors off, I noticed one tree had a pile of ants. No damage but at the same time it makes me worry, also they were all pretty damp where it was and one or 2 looked deformed, I'm assuming because of the plastic. Any advice?

 

Also Couple pictures of today's adventures, red cedar slabs and the others I'm not sure, any ideas?

 

I would like to know too, silver maple I have ,suckers coming out at the base , cut em off many ,many times.

 

I'd only prune the suckers off that whack ya in the head walking by ( like when cutting the lawn).

I didn't have protectors on my apple trees for years until one year some animal that likes to gnaw on apple tree bark chewed on an apple tree . This year I have a squirrel ( or something) picking apples and burying them.

 

They are planting their own trees...
since yours have ants



We planted apple trees here too...not much luck.
The deer destroyed them. Ate the leaves and broke the branches off.
We were told we should have put deer fences around them, but no plastic pipe because mice would nest in the pipes and chew the bark.

 

I will throw my hat in the ring, I think the second slab pics are apple.

 

Looks like black walnut. If I saw the bark I'd be sure one way or the other.

 

That's what I'm thinkin

 

Thanks everyone, I was hoping there was a spray or something of some sort, guess I'll keep cutting. As for the plastic it was a solid plastic cut open on one side. I have access to free mulch, I keep forgetting about that somehow. As for the deer, we have 3 hounds that do a pretty good job of bellaring at everything that moves, not much worry there
As for the wood, it's definitely not black walnut, we've sawn up plenty of that, my buddy thought pear or apple, I'll take a picture of a full log later and upload it.

 

Suckers are a problem when a tree is planted too deep. I've also seen it when a tree is planted at the right depth but someone mounds up additional soil around a tree to make a flower bed or to try and cover surface roots (like on a silver maple). My neighbor never had sucker problems until he mounded soil too high around his tree, now there's a ton of suckers. I've wondered if the suckers would go away if the soil was removed again but I don't know.

 

Interesting! As you can see there's a water tank around this tree, and the suckers almost seem to be getting worse, idk when it was put there though. On that note I've heard that removing dirt from around the trunk of the tree will do harm to it. I can see that being a real possibility.

 

Wait a minute, I feel like there's some words missing there

 

A picture of Tana and Luka who snuck into the truck while i was stacking wood, notice they look guilty. Luka is our mole getter, she's dug up 12-15 of them in 2 years that I know of! Next pic is Luka and Buck, sorry for the bad angle on Buck, he's the lazy one, I've come home after me and the wife have been gone 12+ hours, to find him napping, I let him out and the first thing he does is lays down and takes a nap, no accidents in the house and no taking care of business before his nap. All that sleeping must be exhausting . Like I tell the family when they come over, his favorite thing to do before a nap is to take a prenap, you can't just rush into these things!!

 

Suggestion for the apple trees. If the weeds and grass are all you are concerned with, just pull the grass away and keep them mulched. I would be concerned about winter damage from mice that will go under the snow and chew away the tender bark. for that, cut some 4 inch drain pipe and pop in over the trunk. it will be loose and allow air to circulate. Or use wire cloth loosely around it. That way the air will keep things dry, protect your trees from mice and you weed whacking, and expose any bugs so they are not protected by the shield.

 

I'll have to look into that, I haven't put anything on them since I took them off the other day, if I get time this week I'll run into fleet farm and check out the couple options you suggested.