Q.Will A Bottlebrush Tree Grow Back As A Tree If Cut Back To The Ground?
We “lost” our bottlebrush trees during the freeze in Houston this year. Everything we cut back to the ground was dead. We left them just to see what would happen and 3 of the 4 have new growth. But, will these automatically grow into trees again, do they have to be “trained” or pruned for them to become trees or will they just be shrubs? Thanks!
Certified GKH Gardening Expert
They need to be trained into a shrub or tree. Those are suckers coming up and are typically removed from a tree. If the tree is in its native form you should be able to regrow without problems. However, if your tree was a hybrid or grafted, you may get something different from what you expect. Here is more:
http://ekps.tamu.edu/details?id=50
https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/publication/st110
https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/ornamental/trees/tgen/can-grafted-trees-revert-to-their-root-stock.htm
https://hortnews.extension.iastate.edu/1993/7-28-1993/hybrid.html
