See those?

See those? They are suckers coming off the roots of the apricot trees. They have exploded all over the lawn. My dad spent an hour hacking a bunch out yesterday, I spent several hours clearing all of about 1/3 of the lawn of them today.

We're not really sure why this is happening, as it hasn't happened before. It is supposed to be a stress response, more common in grafted trees, which these are (a lot of fruit trees are). We haven't overpruned, we have been treating for peach borer but not with anything noxious (I hope this doesn't mean the treatment failed - stupid insects), the weather has been messed up and we lost all the buds but the trees leafed everywhere.

This is a bad thing for the tree, and they have to be removed because they are pulling nutrition and so forth away from the main tree. You cannot just pull them up as they are growing off the tree roots. You have to get to the base where it is coming off the root and cut it there. I may need to call the arborist if this continues.