lilac suckering

[msk929 0]

My "lilac"  lilac has been suckering up between pavers next to it.  Does this indicate mites?  

The plant otherwise appears to be healthy.

 

[Steven Nikkila 32]

A lilac naturally suckers and we often allow some to grow because the older lilac canes often get borer and need to be removed so the younger suckers can then grow to be a main trunk. Suckering does not indicate a mite problem.

 

A couple of things:

We do not use or recommend using any weed cloth or plastic in the garden. These materials don't allow for the natural workings of the soil and generally cause more problems than helping the garden. 

Also, we usually don't rip or tear plants, we use sharp pruners or a saw to make cuts. The cleaner the cut the sooner the plant will heal. Torn or ripped branches don't heal correctly and become areas where diseases like root rot can begin.

[Janet Macunovich 32]

Funny how key words can pull a conversation off as well as focus it! 'Lilac' and 'sucker" together took us into talking about whether to remove them because that's the common question...

 

But back to the main question, whether the suckering means there is a mite infestation. There, Steven's right -- the shrub doesn't sucker because of mites, it suckers naturally. When we suspect mites is when it suckers oddly -- develops a huge proliferation of suckers close together, thin and weak and often discolored as we showed in our article in What's Coming Up 221, Cutting Revelations.

 

If your lilac is suckering at a distance from the main trunk, that's natural, not mites. That it's coming up in your pavers, that means you're asking a big shrub to be smaller than it wants to be and you will have to keep removing suckers. Cut them right off the root (lift a paver and cut) or tear them off the root if they are still small enough. As Steve says, cutting is better than tearing in most pruning but as Robin says, tearing a small sucker from the root can (cross our fingers) remove its base/the node that produced it, thereby preventing or delaying the formation of a new sucker at that point.