The constant battle against the trees.

[Fubarius]

So anyone who owns any amount of land will tell you that trees are some of the best, and worst, parts of land ownership. You spend money on a tree, the darn thing won't grow. You clear out some trees for whatever reason, the darn things grow back in twice the numbers.

So here's a few species of trees that have given me a few headaches over the years.

First, the Box Elder. AKA the Boxelder Maple, Manitoba Maple, or Ash-leaved Maple (all pictures not mine, harvested from the wilds of the internet)...



Kind of a bushy tree, great for shade, easy to grow, almost too easy to grow. The darn things pop up everywhere. They like to sprout new branches pretty much everywhere, so you're constantly trimming around the trunk to keep the darn things looking like, well, a tree. They'll also spout branches in just about every direction, and grow rather rapidly towards available light. So after a while you get something like this....



Yep, all twisted and weird. For a kid they make great climbing trees. As an adult, it's the tree that used to be along the fence line, but now for some reason is leaning over your garage and has shot up another 20 feet above it. The darn thing will suddenly decide to grow at a 45 degree angle (or steeper) instead of up, and then randomly grow up along the angled section. This is the tree that WILL make you say, "wait, that wasn't there before!?!" Also if a storm knocks one over the darn thing will still live and just start growing towards the light again. And the worst part, when you go to trim down the building threatening portions of said tree, the pieces will NOT fall in the direction you expect. A carefully pre notched section that should fall east, will instead twist south. I didn't expect to do a 20 yard dash while holding a 10ft pole saw last weekend, but I did. A few times.

One more for the night. This is the common Buckthorn...

Kill it. On sight. Do not hesitate. I don't care if you think it's pretty, or makes a nice hedge, just kill it. ALL OF IT. Once a patch of this stuff takes hold you will NEVER be rid of the stuff. You chop it down, it grows right back. You seal off the stump, it sprouts in a circle around it. Birds eat the berries it makes and then poop them out later, so it spreads super fast to anywhere a bird might go. That's everywhere. Don't think the name will mean the local deer population will keep in under control. They won't. This is an invasive plant, and our deer are smart enough not to chew on this thorny menace. Goats love the stuff, so if you happen to know a goat farmer have him bring the herd over to help eradicate this monster of a plant.

[DocsMachine]

Back when the pandemic was just winding up, we had another scourge of spruce-bark beetles come through. They eat into the living layer of the tree- a younger, healthy tree can fend them off with sap, but an older, less productive tree can't mount enough of a fight before they've eaten too much of the living part.

So the whole area lost a bunch of big spruce- even now there's places you can drive past that are just splotches of leafy green among dead and brown 'evergreen'.

In the last three years, I've had to cut or have cut down, a bunch of trees on my property- including a big one that was leaning towards the shop.

Hated to see 'em go, and hated to have to pay a small fortune to have some experts drop the tricky ones, but I couldn't afford having them fall on buildings or vehicles.

Doc.

[StaticShocked]

I feel you. A constant battle between fast growing trees, bushes and maintaining trees. I have two dying trees that are in dangerous areas that i need to drop before they fall the wrong way on their own. *whiny voice* They are just so big and the cleanup takes so long when you have to cut and split everything. Fubarius, the comments about Box Elder made me laugh because i have had the exact same thoughts and issues with that tree. I only learned its name a few years ago. "Where did that tree come from?". "That wasn't that big a few months ago...". "How did it get so tall just over the summer?!". Like you said, they wear their weight weird so you never know how parts of them are going to fall. *sign*

Thankfully i am not familiar with the bush and hopefully it stays that way from what you said. lol

[Bert_bart_brett]

So anyone who owns any amount of land will tell you that trees are some of the best, and worst, parts of land ownership. You spend money on a tree, the darn thing won't grow. You clear out some trees for whatever reason, the darn things grow back in twice the numbers.

So here's a few species of trees that have given me a few headaches over the years.

First, the Box Elder. AKA the Boxelder Maple, Manitoba Maple, or Ash-leaved Maple (all pictures not mine, harvested from the wilds of the internet)...



Kind of a bushy tree, great for shade, easy to grow, almost too easy to grow. The darn things pop up everywhere. They like to sprout new branches pretty much everywhere, so you're constantly trimming around the trunk to keep the darn things looking like, well, a tree. They'll also spout branches in just about every direction, and grow rather rapidly towards available light. So after a while you get something like this....



Yep, all twisted and weird. For a kid they make great climbing trees. As an adult, it's the tree that used to be along the fence line, but now for some reason is leaning over your garage and has shot up another 20 feet above it. The darn thing will suddenly decide to grow at a 45 degree angle (or steeper) instead of up, and then randomly grow up along the angled section. This is the tree that WILL make you say, "wait, that wasn't there before!?!" Also if a storm knocks one over the darn thing will still live and just start growing towards the light again. And the worst part, when you go to trim down the building threatening portions of said tree, the pieces will NOT fall in the direction you expect. A carefully pre notched section that should fall east, will instead twist south. I didn't expect to do a 20 yard dash while holding a 10ft pole saw last weekend, but I did. A few times.

One more for the night. This is the common Buckthorn...

Kill it. On sight. Do not hesitate. I don't care if you think it's pretty, or makes a nice hedge, just kill it. ALL OF IT. Once a patch of this stuff takes hold you will NEVER be rid of the stuff. You chop it down, it grows right back. You seal off the stump, it sprouts in a circle around it. Birds eat the berries it makes and then poop them out later, so it spreads super fast to anywhere a bird might go. That's everywhere. Don't think the name will mean the local deer population will keep in under control. They won't. This is an invasive plant, and our deer are smart enough not to chew on this thorny menace. Goats love the stuff, so if you happen to know a goat farmer have him bring the herd over to help eradicate this monster of a plant.

I don't know what I hate more, box elder, Russian olive or tree of heaven. But have saw, will travel!

[flyweightnate]

You summed it perfectly - the best and the worst parts of home ownership.

In Dallas, not a ton of trees to deal with on a small lot. But of course they're all pecans, and just spontaneously break or leave little pieces hanging dead. And no, they don't offer delicious pecans, they either give none or really bitter ones because the weather is unpredictable and aphids attack them and pollinators have probably all been nuked by Mosquito Joe (or the city).

I use more triclopyr than I should on the mulberry and elm (and snailseed - ugh) that spontaneously appear in the garden, but it's not like I have time to dig up all the roots on a monthly basis.

There's something about walking down to the park/ thicket when the kids go crazy, though. Even if it's about half privet and half poison ivy at the edges, once we get inside and under all the trees - a mix of cottonwood, juniper, elm, oak, and who knows what else - everyone just settles right down. The Japanese "tree bath" treatment is a real thing, whether it's physical or just mental.

[Fubarius]

This is the first time I've seen the phrase "tree bath" but I know exactly what it means.

[cockerpunk]

we have a buckthorn pulling singles weekly meet up here in the cities. pretty great way to meet people. buckthorn is about as popular as ice is.

[Fubarius]

That is darn good idea. Might have to see if I can make it out to one of those.

[StaticShocked]

Whoa, i just came up with a legit reason to buy a rocket launcher for scenario games. I need (could use it for) it to launch my little throwing beanbag with the little rope that i use to pull the bigger control rope up into trees. That would be sweet and way more accurate than trying to throw it way up in a tree... or at least more fun.

[DocsMachine]

When I had a tree taken down a few years ago, the guy used a slingshot. Fired something like paracord up, got it around the trunk, pulled up some 3/4" rope. If you had a business doing it, using a "Bazooka" would be fun.

Doc.

[Fubarius]

Back when the pandemic was just winding up, we had another scourge of spruce-bark beetles come through. They eat into the living layer of the tree- a younger, healthy tree can fend them off with sap, but an older, less productive tree can't mount enough of a fight before they've eaten too much of the living part....

Around here we still get the classic dutch elm disease meaning elms are quite rare, the new kid on the block the Emerald Ash Borer killing off a bunch of our ash trees, and the one that screwed me over, Oak Wilt. It's a fungus that spread through the root systems, so if one tree gets it it spreads to neighboring trees. And then beetles are attracted to the fungus infected trees to spread spores to even more trees. I had 5 huge oaks in my side yard when I bought the house (for you city folk, a house in the country won't have "a" yard, but at least 2, often more, and in my case 6 different yards, mowing takes me fricken hours). All died within a year or two. Two were right next to the house. And these were huge oaks, could have crushed the house. Luckily I know a guy. He brought over a half dozen guys, a bobcat, a big trailer, and 2 competition truck puller rigs with a really big steel cable. We yanked both of those over no problem. All that and all it cost me was he got to keep the wood for his furnace.

[Chappy]

You still have living ash trees? Mine are all long dead, tho not all down yet.. .

[Bert_bart_brett]

Yeah in NJ I've seen two in my entire county still alive and one was on a tree removal job

[Chappy]

This thread is like my woodland management plan in a forum post

[SignOfZeta]

I have about 17 mature deciduous trees in my 2 acres. I barely do anything with them but I have of course paid thousands to have them cut up and taken away when they occasionally fall over. I have never once trimmed a tree because I thought it was “weird”. I only trim them when they are encroaching on the house.

Do you own the local park or something? What do you mean by “owning land”? If you have dozens of acres and it’s hard to keep them all looking like a golf course then there is a very easy way to rid yourself of that sort of problem…

[Fubarius]

Golf course? Dude, I mow weeds.

But just for the heck of it, here's a map of my little corner of the countryside, which is around 7.5 acres...



The red areas are the assorted lawns. The End of Driveway needs to be maintained since the neighbors to the south do a very good job with their landscaping, got to keep up with the joneses a bit. Also, a par 3 Disk Golf hole going from the mailbox in the lower right corner to the edge of that lawn.

The Front Lawn is one huge hill. It has most of the road frontage so I like to keep it clean for "curb appeal" though ironically the hill is big enough you can't see the house from the road. That's ok, I like the privacy. Also, 2 more disk golf holes. Portable, so I move them around a lot. Admittedly this area is twice the size it was than when I moved in. Flattened out the old BMX track some kids built up there back in the 80's, who's shape you can kind of make out in the satellite image.

By the Shed is where the grass grows fastest for some reason, stuff would be knee deep if I let that go. Behind the shed is where the main bonfire pit is. Pay to haul away wood? Bah, just call some friends over and have a party.

Side yard was the one once covered in giant oaks. Just one oak there now, was just a twig of a tree when I moved in, it's about 20 feet tall now.

Back yard has the well, septic, and propane tank. Keep it clean mostly for maintenance purposes.

It's the hills and odd nooks and crannies in the yard that take the longest. If it was all just flat it would be no problem.

The Big Ass Pines are I think Red Pines, people back in the day planted rows of them as an investment. They supposedly are worth something as lumber. Or were worth something at the time. Now they're like 80 feet tall and keep the sun from turning the pole shed into an oven in the summer.

I occasionally mow down the tall grass at the Fire Pit and Campsite location. It up on top of yet another hill and has some nice views. Very relaxing. Great place to just chill and watch a camp fire.

Up by there was a few acres of prairie grass, but the darn Sumacs overtook it. And a lot of Junipers, which have been spreading a lot over the last few years as well. The main powerline runs over part of this, took a lot of calls to get the power company to cut down the stuff that kept brushing up against the high voltage lines, so I'll mow through here every so often to keep any new trees from popping up under the powerlines.

Across the road is a patch of land I rarely visit. Mostly Poplars with some dense undergrowth (more of that damn buckthorn). The neighbor owns a strip of land next to it, combined they'd make a nice place for a home if the engineers deem it buildable. Lots of sand under that prairie part, so eh, maybe. One of these days I'll somehow buy him out or sell that section to him or we'll make some other kind of deal. Though this is township rules, not city, so they might not let a lot of my size be subdivided.

The road got eminent domained through the property decades before I got the place. Rather inconvenient. It wouldn't be so bad except they dug down 40 feet down into the hill for it, so there's impassibly steep hills on either side of the road.

Yes those corn silos are for a working farm. Semitruck loads of corn are brought in for drying every fall. Over by the Hole is an autobody shop. The wonderful mix you get when you're in the country but smack dab in-between two cities on a major highway. Though things are building up, I'm now 15 minutes from the nearest Starbucks instead of 45.

[William the Third]

"Hole, kind of swampy" is how people describe my ass.

[kevin qmto]

Two plants are the bane of my paintball field managing soul here in Missouri. and elsewhere I'm sure.

Japanese Honey Suckle. Where to begin with these? They're borderline indestructible. There was one as large in circumference as a basketball, cut it to a stump, and it sprouted new branches for 5 years (every year I cut it to the ground again). I wondered how is this giant plant supporting itself with basically zero leaves for 5 years and yet it still survives? And also it grows back so fast. It out competes native plants to such a degree that if you let it take hold, soon there's nothing else left.

Autumn Olive trees. These are the hydras of the invasive, fast growing tree world. You cut down its main trunk, no problem, it just grows 5 more, repeat until you cry uncle. It's not quite as unkillable as Honey Suckle, I found that if I cut it to a stump two years in a row it finally died. It also can be killed if it's constantly being pelted with paintballs in a high splatter zone. One of them was part of a large brush bunker at the 50 on one field and it was almost always fully splattered, and after about five years it died. Good riddance.

[StaticShocked]

Autumn Olive thorns are so nasty... Just sparse enough to forget it has thorns and if you get poked in a joint, it can cause enough irritation to swell up for a few days (at least on me). The Japanese honey suckle is everywhere on the property and is indeed indestructible. I gave up and instead keep trimming it like a hedge row along the driveway. Now it looks like it's supposed to be there, lol.