Aspen saplings

CazzieT

For the past 20 years we have been troubled by hundreds of saplings from 6 mature aspens at the bottom of a fairly large garden.  They come up all over the place, in the lawn, under shrubs, you name it.   We wanted to fell the trees and I did some research and found that aspens have particularly strong ability to regenerate from roots if the tree is damaged. However, studies have shown that felling the trees then knocking ecoplugs of glyphosate into the stumps kills the roots and prevents sapling regrowth.  So we had professional tree surgeons in to do that last autumn.  Now we are finding dozens of saplings appearing, worse than before, which looks as if the treatment has not worked as we had hoped.  Might the poison start to work now that spring growth is well underway or do we need to do something else?

pansyface

CazzieT

Good old Gerard!  Fortunately, in our case, there are plenty of others in the vicinity to make up for the ones lost.  And our little suckers are doing their best - surely as they must have done in Binsey?

pansyface

Blue Onion

The red of the leaves suggests they have some poison in them.. but it's asking a lot for a dead stump to pull in much poison after cut.  I expect the wound seals up within a few days or so.  Mow over them for the summer.. or if they are in with bedding, use a shovel to sever them below the soil.  They'll lose steam eventually.  Alternatively, spray the sapling leaves with glyphosate.. they will soon wither and die.

Blue Onion

Lovely poem PF, thanks for sharing.  I've not seen that one before.  I share it with my OH.  

CazzieT

Thanks for the reply. I think the new shoots are usually pinkish so that might be normal. Looks as if we'll just have to see what happens and deal with them as we did previously.