RE: Stooling

Claire,
When I was in hort school, one instructor was a licensed arborist.  He said
coppicing is when the limbs of a mature tree are cut back all at the same
level, down to where they break from the trunk.  It causes a mass of thick
growth that some find attractive (I call it butchery). I see it occasionally
around town in the gardens of older homes and on estates. It must be done
every year to maintain the "look".  This is hard to describe, it would be
easier to draw a picture.
 Stooling, as you correctly stated, is cutting young trees and shrubs to the
ground to produce nice straight stems and good color.  Nurserymen here in
Oregon do as you described below to produce grafting stock for fruit trees
and Japanese maples.  They are called whips.

Marilyn Dube'
Natural Designs Nursery
Portland, Oregon


-----Original Message-----
From:	owner-perennials@mallorn.com [owner-perennials@mallorn.com] On
Behalf Of ECPep@aol.com
Sent:	Sunday, August 05, 2001 2:39 PM
To:	perennials@mallorn.com
Subject:	Re: Stooling

In a message dated 8/4/01 7:11:13 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
eoneill@attglobal.net writes:

. So stooling is similar
 to/the same as coppicing, then? Or is there a technical difference? >>

I looked through my books on this subject and do not find the word "coppice"
in any pruning guide.  It must be a mainly British term so maybe one of our
UK members will explain this.

Stooling is easier.  In the old Taylor guide (before someone cut up Norman
Taylor into dozens of expensive and useless guides) he talks about stooling
as a method to increase shrubs.  You cut off the shrub at the crown and when
it starts to sprout you mound some good soil over the "stool" creating lots
of new plants.  This is one of many shrub propagating methods and probably
used for those that do not strike easily in a frame.  He calls this the
"parent plant whch gives rise to to various propagative organs......." etc.

Stooling is also is also talked about in a number of books on shrubs.
Cotinus seems to be the example always given.  I suppose you could try it on
any shrub you wanted to keep smaller and bloom lower as in a perennial
border.

Claire Peplowski
NYS z4

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