I am cleaning up my grove and have a overabundance of Mulberry trees, around 225 of them. I would like to destroy every last one, but I know that cutting them down does not kill the tree, they will come back. After cutting them down, what type of application can I apply to the stumps to totally be rid of the tree for good!
By Brad Reddy from Swea City, IA
If the Mulberry tree is the same a mulberry bush, then I think you need to cut the roots. I was at college, many years ago, and there was a mulberry bush on the grounds. While installing a power cable to the boat house, the bushes roots were damaged. I believe it survived, as the damage wasn't that bad, but the National Trust was concerned, and though it might die.
There is nothing that you can apply to the stumps to make the roots die. The correct way to kill the trees would be to remove the roots from the ground. You can either hire a company to do this or if you have a tractor, you can dig them out yourself. I'm not sure what you are using the land for, but overall it would be best if you could remove everything. Roots that are left in the ground will continue to try to grow and the roots will continue to feed even with the tree stump cut off. So, if you build a house or have landscaping on the property then you can have major problems with roots getting in everywhere (like pipes) and stealing vast amounts of water from your landscaping. And if you leave the roots and then the roots start to decompose under the ground, then your yard will have lots of mushrooms popping up everywhere and lots of bugs, all feeding on the dead tree roots.
Chemicals won't help you, chemicals are a poison and they will hurt you. They may cause damage to the trees but you would need A lot of poison and do you really want to live or garden or anything in an area that was just washed in poison?
What I would recommend, check with local woodworkers in the area. Mulberry tree wood, also called Murrey, is supposed to be great wood for fine furniture. Perhaps you could sell the wood to local artisans to help recoup the costs of removal. Or depending on how large these trees are, you could sell them to be transplanted elsewhere. People pay big bucks to have large trees transplanted, although it does require about a years of prep work from the owner to prune the root system.
I had a very large paper mulberry in my yard that had grown way too big.
I tried a lot of different things but it just kept on growing. The one that worked was amazingly simple. First I cut back all of the branches I could reach. Once that was done I used my drill to bore a one inch hole to the center of the trunk, about a foot up
Here are the questions asked by community members. Read on to see the answers provided by the ThriftyFun community.
How do you kill the root runners from a paper mulberry tree that has been cut down?
By Marilyn A.
I have dug them out by hand for years but because neighbors wouldn't control the ones on their property, and I had a broken ankle, runners kept coming back. Recently I had someone spend 2 days cutting down the hundreds of sprouts and paint the cut ends with Remedy.
