A year ago in September 2020, Hurricane Laura wrought some havoc in the arboretum. You can read the original post about that event here. The most noteworthy damage was to a pair of sweetbay magnolias, which suffered severe breakage to their trunks. Ultimately, we decided that the trees were a total loss and cut both away at ground level. The result, rather than the death of the trees, was coppicing.
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After the weeks long cleanup operation that followed Hurricane Laura, two sweetbay magnolia stumps remained (September 2020).
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Coppicing is an ancient practice for which only some species of trees are fit. To coppice a tree, you cut it down with only a few feet of stump remaining. This is typically done to harvest lumber, for firewood, or to make charcoal. Trees that are amenable to coppicing will not die but rather will send up new shoots. What's going on underground? Does the tree preserve its entire root network? Does it atrophy? We don't know. If you attempt this with most trees, the result will be a swift death for that specimen.
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Regrowth from the stump (April 2021)
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The following spring, the sweetbay magnolias unexpectedly began to sprout. We weren't sure how it would get along. You can read the previous post here.
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In late fall, the two stumps are now obscured by new growth. The two trunks didn't produce the same number of shoots; the stump on the left produced significantly fewer shoots.
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We see five or more shoots emerging from one stump (September 2021).
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The other sweetbay magnolia produced more than 10 shoots, enshrouding the stump (September 2021).
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What is to be done with all of this new growth? Ought we simply allow the sweetbay magnolias to develop unhindered, or ought we take an active role in shaping their futures? For the sake of increasing visibility in the arboretum, the decision was made to at least thin the new shoots. One stump was allowed to pursue the destiny of a shrub, while the other stump was cut back to a single leader. Of course, based on what we have already seen from these two magnolias, we expect that more shoots will appear.
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| For one stump, the decision was made to encourage a single straight trunk; therefore, we removed all but
the largest shoot (September 2021). |
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For the other stump, the shoots were thinned, but it will still maintain its current form as a shrub.
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