Yup thats it, thank you! That page describes it so well. "can form impenetrable thickets", lol..that was the back 1/3 of my yard! Thank you! Daniella

It looks like a weeping cherry. The branches are meant to hang down low. If you cut them back you will ruin the shape of your tree. Google image 'weeping cherry' and see how good a well-grown specimen looks.

And those are likely seeds -- ready to be spread by birds. I have these coming up all over my garden. Easy to pull though.

I don't think it is stranglebrand. I have seen it in person on a friend's plants and I don't think it is it. She had gotten some nursery plants and they had various stages of the lesions. We went back to that nursery and sure enough, there were more just like hers! For one SB is usually a lesion with a dark ring around it. If left to heal on its own then it starts to get a dry-rotted appearance to it. To me, yours looks more like some type of split in the trunk that stayed wet or got some type of fungal thing going on but not SB. One time one of mine got a split and I ended up digging a big caterpillar out of it lol. I let it heal and it began to look like your photo of the knot looking brug. ~SJN