I recently cut down a 35yo American sycamore (Buttonwood plane tree) in my back yard because it was
too close to a small garden wall and it would have been breaking it in the
next year or two.

I watched this thing grow from a sprout into a sapling...
and then to a soaring giant... so I was really sad about cutting it.... but I have so
many others.. so down it came.

I asked the tree-guys to leave a stump of about 18" high as a seat by the wall.
It was cut across very smooth and nicely and is about 2.5ft in diameter.

That was in the early Spring.

... so by now the top of the stump is drying out nicely.
... and so today I sat on it with my little kitty cat relaxing in the yard.
.... and as I glanced down along the side of the stump towards the old roots along the now flaking-off areas of old bark... What do I see?
.. But a whole bunch of tiny little fresh reddish-green buds poking out right though the bark every
where... about 25 or so of these little things!
Some were just the tiniest pointy spike of a red tipped bud... others already
were turning upward a 1/2" inch or so and forming little itsy-bitsy little leaves.

Wow... such stamina!

Now I really feel bad... lol
I feel like a tree murderer with fresh sawdust on my hands...

Trees store a lot of nutrients, in their root system. I remember a tree we had in the middle of our front lawn, when growing up. One day my father decided the tree had to go. We were teenage boys, so we got our orders. Sawed it down to ground level, but did not remove the stump. In a couple of months some shoots sprang up. We did nothing. in less than a year we had three twenty plus tall trunks (6 to 10" diameter). It was like the tree was never cut down.

In our area poplar (trembling aspen) send shoots up from their root
system. Cut a tree down, and for a couple of decades you'll be mowing
off the small shoots.
They log them to make chipboard. No replanting needed.
Nelson

Don't feel bad about cutting down a tree. Sometimes they have to go. Had a small forest my my back yard years ago chocking each other out. After having certain ones taken down the majestic ones are recovering. I cut down a 20 foot holly tree myself. Holly trees are evil. Damn thing kept sprouting back until I ground out the stump.

I have a few fig trees in my yard. Some years I wrap them in the winter. A few times, the entire tree died down to the ground, I cut it down and it grew back full size in a year or two. Thanks to global warming, it no longer needs to be wrapped, and I just had to prune it tonight as it was blocking light for a blue spruce next to it.
New York City finally realized that if they made larger tree pits, they would grow much larger street trees. The Japanese Zelcova they planted in front of my house (in my garden!) is twice as high as my house and three times the size of other trees that are in small pits, after just 15 years.
Don

Trees are predatory. They fed the dinosaurs and ruled the world, and they're out to do it again. If your lights go out for more than 2 hours, a tree did it. They will undermine your driveway, sidewalk, foundation, sewer line. Trees kill people in Central Park every year, despite being trimmed regularly. They will stomp on your house or car like the Incredible Colossal Man. Hugging them does not make one immune. Trees have no conscience. They will snuff you soon as look at you.

*We should take all the trees, puttem on a big boat, send it across the ocean and sink it halfway.* Then make our own dam oxygen. (* - * is a paraphrase of a Nickelodeon cartoon. Can you name it?)

We had a cyclone in New York City last year, and big trees in small tree pits were uprooted or blown over, crushing and flattening many parked cars.
Don

You don't know massive trees unless you've seen Ginkgos, Camphors and Mysore Figs up close and personal...

This is one ginkgo I've had the pleasure of 'meeting'. The trunk is over 20 feet in diameter and the tree itself is still over 100 feet tall.



Below is a mysore fig... those babies NEVER get blown over.

Interestingly, there are more consequences from scalping the Earth of trees than most people think.
If the Earth had no mountains or trees, we'd be subjected to tornado-strength winds on a regular basis. Even with just no trees, it would not be very nice.

Mudslides and landslides would become commonplace as well - grasses and small plants aren't totally sufficient in most cases.

The Earth would be also be significantly hotter, with so much more ground exposed to the sun.

Now, those are just the abiotic issues....

But can you name the cartoon?

There's some weird trees out here in Cali I don't know the names of. But anyway, there's one tree that is in our neighbor's yard that grows long stringy limbs with lots of purple flowers. It will droop over the corner of our yard. A year ago he cut ALL of the branches off leaving just a naked trunk. At first I was really depressed because there was a huge hole in the back yard. But whatever this tree is must be ok with that because it has already completely grown back. Within days of him cutting the limbs off it began shooting out new ones.

Could be a wisteria:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisteria

Also the name of the cul de sac, of favorite women's TV show