Ex-Rowan

[nitrambur]

I have a 15-20 year old rowan in the garden that has succumbed to fire-blight, or something similar. I've been cutting branches off for years to try to beat it but the hot dry summer finally did it in. All the leaves are still on the branches, just curled up and brown, and the bark is split.
As far as I can tell the main branches were grafted on to another stock about 3-4 foot high, that looks ok, and there's another shoot sprouting from the roots.
Do I chop it below the graft or near the ground?

 

[Woody girl]

If the shoot is coming from the root stock below the graft then you will be growing the origional tree again. I'm not expert on this and I'm sure someone will give you a better answer. Personally I would dig it out and burn it. Take off the topsoil and replace and plant something else. If you want another rowan, plant it somewhere else in the garden. If you let the original rootstock grow into a new tree you may still end up with blight comming back.

 

[Janne]

Stupid question:

Why would you graft a such hardy tree as a Rowan? On what rootstock? (Common tree in nature).
I know that rowan roots are grafter on though. Gives an increased hardiness to fruit trees like pear.

 

[nitrambur]

If the shoot is coming from the root stock below the graft then you will be growing the origional tree again. I'm not expert on this and I'm sure someone will give you a better answer. Personally I would dig it out and burn it. Take off the topsoil and replace and plant something else. If you want another rowan, plant it somewhere else in the garden. If you let the original rootstock grow into a new tree you may still end up with blight comming back.

Blight starts at the tips and works down.
I can't dig it out the chicken coop has been built around it

 

[nitrambur]

Stupid question:

Why would you graft a such hardy tree as a Rowan? On what rootstock? (Common tree in nature).
I know that rowan roots are grafter on though. Gives an increased hardiness to fruit trees like pear.

From a site selling rowans :-
Most of our Rowan trees are grafted on to Sorbus aucuparia rootstocks, to help give a consistent size and better tolerance to drought.

 

[daveO]

Stupid question:

Why would you graft a such hardy tree as a Rowan? On what rootstock? (Common tree in nature).
I know that rowan roots are grafter on though. Gives an increased hardiness to fruit trees like pear.

There are cultivars of sorbus that are bred for decoration with different coloured berries or leaves. I imagine they graft them onto root stock to maintain the clone of the donor plant as they wouldn't grow true from seed.

 

[Janne]

Interesting, thank you!

could the rootstock have produced a weaker (against disease) rowan tree?

I planted quite a few Rowan back in UK, for the colourful berries, and to attract birds. Love those trees!

 

[Toddy]

Twice my Rowan has died back with something that split the bark, left the twigs shrivelled and almost fungus'd looking.
Each time I just cut it hard back, since I couldn't easily dig out the stump anyway where it's growing. Each time it's come away again, stronger than before.
This last year has been the best crop of berries I've had on it yet.

One of the original street planted trees was another Rowan. It too died back like mine, but was cut down to ground level, I only cut mine back to a healthy pair of stumps. Even that cut down to ground level tree tried to come up again until the Council mowing machine ran over it once too often.

They're pretty hardy trees, it takes an awful lot to totally kill one.

M

 

[Robson Valley]

Was this one variety grafted to another one? All of my textbooks claim that your 'Rowan'
is, in fact, Sorbus aucuparia. They are common city boulevard plantings which attract great flocks
of winter birds as well as moose and deer (yes, in the city).

Cheap bustards like me go out into the boreal forest with a shovel and dig up examples
of our 2 native species of Sorbus for transplanting into the garden.

Since you talk of clear evidence of stock/scion grafting.
Cut off all of the apparently diseased sprouts from the stock.
See what comes out from the original stock.
You can always graft what appears to be fresh & healthy scions at any time later.

 

[Janne]

I dug up mine too. Makes me a cheap bustard too!

 

[Broch]

Sorbus aucuparia is our native rootstock so you could cut it at any point and still have Rowan come back. If it's been grafted it will have one of the ornamental sub-species on top. If it's 20 years old I'm assuming it's about 5 or 6 inches in diameter with 3 or 4 main branched at about 6 to 8 foot up? If so I would 'pollard' it cutting those main branches either to within an inch of the trunk (sounds drastic I know but it works) or leaving them a couple of foot long. Either way you should get new growth in the spring just below the cuts. It will take a few year for it to develop into a decent shape but it's worth it.

If the graft is only 3 to 4 foot up then it implies the root stock may be something else - a dwarf species of some kind (otherwise the Sorbus aucuparia root stock would have grown taller than that). That would be common for garden grown ornamentals. The above still applies; it will just remain a smaller tree

 

[nitrambur]

Pollarded above the graft, chest height so I guess it's a dwarf. Now to wait and see if it sprouts.

 

[Toddy]

Best of luck with it, though I suspect that the Rowan will come away again.

When mine first went down with it, I asked my bother if he knew anything about diseases of Rowans.
He replied,
"Apart from chronic witch, no".....

 

[Woody girl]

Don't forget to sterilise the tools you used. Pick up all debris and burn it. This can spread to Apple and other fruiting trees if it is fireblight. . Not a bad idea to do that with anything at all suspect in the garden anyway. Good luck for a comeback. It would be a shame to loose the shade for the chucks in the summer.