Like most typical suburban homes I have three live oaks in my front yard. One of them constantly has sprouts (also called suckers) growing up through the mulch. When I moved into the house it was pretty bad, so I dug down, pulled all of them by hand, put down some weed barrier, and covered in mulch (also got attacked by fire ants). That helped for about a year. Now the sprouts are growing up through or around the weed barrier.

They are near the tree trunk, so I don't want to spray anything. I haven't seen anything helpful online. Does anyone have any tips to help?
Currently I just pull out the ones that I can see everytime I finish mowing the yard, it makes the job less of a task.

have same issue. Several tree experts told me to just cut them off with weed eater or whatever as you want. Natural part of some oaks and nothing you can really do to stop them. Definitely no chemicals or such as they are part of root system. my lawn guy just trims them with weed eater. Sorry that is all i know to do.

I got so many of these suckers under a few of my oaks that it looks like ground cover. Not even kidding. Nothing you can do about it short of killing the main tree. I just mow them down and figure they will be handy if I ever decide to have a grove of oaks in that one spot some day.

My crepe myrtles do the same. I cut them in late May/early june and the suckers are already 18 inches tall. Need to get back out and cut again. I assume it's slowing the growth of the rest of the tree.

I have two huge thirty year old crepe myrtles in the front yard that are identical. I bought and planted them myself. One always has a ton of root sprouts and the other one has never done that. Not sure why. Like some live oaks never have this problem either.

Intresting. One of my 5 barely has any - the other 4 are like gremlins tossed in a swimming pool!

You can buy a "plastic" cover to go over the "shoots". It is breathable. Will smother/kill the shoots. Just cover it w mulch

They guy on the local weekend gardening show here in San Antonio says that the root sprouts or "suckers" are a sign of stress, which is most often caused by the root crown of the tree being covered with soil and mulch. The analogy that he uses is that if the trunk of the tree looks like a telephone pole sticking out of the ground, the root flare is not exposed enough. This can be corrected by removing mulch and soil from around the base of the tree to expose the root flare either by hand or mechanically with an air spade. I have the same problem with the live oaks in my front yard but can't speak to the effectiveness of the solution as I have not worked up the energy to try removing the soil from around them.

Jason_InfinityRoofer said:

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I got so many of these suckers under a few of my oaks that it looks like ground cover. Not even kidding. Nothing you can do about it short of killing the main tree. I just mow them down and figure they will be handy if I ever decide to have a grove of oaks in that one spot some day.

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Same with the live oaks at my parents house at the edge of the hill country. They've been like that for 40 years now and took over the grass at the same time the canopy filled in enough to make it too dark for the St Augustine to grow. Definitely not somewhere you'd want to walk barefoot as a kid!

The trees have been healthy and happy for decades, the suckers would just get mowed like regular grass. Random fact, the only place I've encountered a porcupine was in the middle of where all that stuff grows.

https://neilsperry.com/2017/05/question-of-the-week-may-4-2017/

I kept spraying them with the black tar tree pruning stuff. Eventually I won the battle.

Country Squire said:

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They guy on the local weekend gardening show here in San Antonio says that the root sprouts or "suckers" are a sign of stress, which is most often caused by the root crown of the tree being covered with soil and mulch. The analogy that he uses is that if the trunk of the tree looks like a telephone pole sticking out of the ground, the root flare is not exposed enough. This can be corrected by removing mulch and soil from around the base of the tree to expose the root flare either by hand or mechanically with an air spade. I have the same problem with the live oaks in my front yard but can't speak to the effectiveness of the solution as I have not worked up the energy to try removing the soil from around them.

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I love Bob Webster. He's all organic so he might not be super popular around here but I really enjoy his show. He's so pleasant and kind to all the callers and you can tell he's passionate about helping people get in to or become better gardeners.

pour some concrete around the base, then just paint it green. show that tree whose boss