Orange Tree Reborn? (growing, trees, spring, leaves)

[budlight]

This is a strange situation. I cut down an orange tree that was not producing at all after close to 20 years of bearing fruit. I cut it down to a stump about 4 inches off the ground. I was going to grind it down and eventually sod over it. The stump remained dormant and I did nothing to it for about a year. Now come spring of this year and it started sprouting little green stems. Fast forward to now and it has many green stems that have thickened and the whole thing has turned into a 2-3 foot high bush that is really thickening and growing. Is this a re-incarnation for is this normal behavior for orange tree?

[marino760]

It's normal for many trees or shrubs to go into survival mode and sucker in order to produce as many leaves as possible quickly as possible when cut down like you did. The new growth might be coming from rootstock and not be the same variety of orange you had.

[wit-nit]

Yes it's a normal thing as mentioned above, they're called sucker growth here and they are generally useless unless you want to make a decorative bush out of it.

[Misty Mountains]

Yep, concurring with PPs. It is the rootstock that is growing.

Here is a decent YouTube Vid to explain rootstock if you want to know about it.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jQqScsKWoo

[budlight]

Thank you for your answers. I was kind of hoping it would bear fruit in a few years but was pretty sure it was just a bush. Either way, I will give it some time to see what happens to it.