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["Lutesville" <Lutesville@cox.net>]

Sam mentions cutting frequently as a means of keeping comfrey from spreading, and I thought I would mention what happened with my "Tree of Heaven", which we call the tree from hell.

 

It was planted some years before we got the house, and as it was in an undesireable place where it was causing structural damage to the well house, we cut it down about ten years ago. Ever since, we have done battle with the forest in our back yard. There are thousands of these trees in the yard. We pull them up , getting all the root we can get, and the next day there are hundreds more. Where the roots are too big to pull out of the ground, there are dozens of sprouts on every root. They are comming up on the other side of the fence, heading down to the pasture, and have come up under the house and even in front of the house now.

 

And the experts can correct me if I am wrong, but I believe that stooling beds are made by planting a tree, say an apple, and letting it get established, then cutting the tree off near the ground. This forces the roots to send up new trees some distance from the initial trunk. This is a standard mans of propagating rootstocks, as I understand it.

 

Joyce