Cottonwoods...yuk! Also, no Tulip poplars that make a huge mess and have very small canopies and basically look like a telephone pole with a tiny bit of green at the top.

Sweetgums but only in someone else's yard unless it's the monkey-ball-less cultivar ('Rotundiloba'). Willows near someone else's pond. Ginko but only if she is a girl. Black Walnut on someone else's large property.

For me, Magnolia grandiflora 'Victoria' or 'Bracken's Brown Beauty' or most of the other cold hardy cultivars. Good maples but not Norway. Good oaks but not pin. Nessa sylvatica, now that's a nice tree. (I'm looking for a good replacement for a horrible Norway maple that my neighbor wanted me to save.)

So we're on the same page about those horrible poplars. Ugly things, aren't they? And you brought back memories by mentioning the ginkos. Ginkos and Aspens lined the street where I grew up. Some garden center must have had a big ginko promotion circa 1970 or so. :-) I miss them now - my mom still lives there but most of the ginkos are gone and I don't see them anywhere else.

Another tree I love/hate is the mulberry. I like them because mulberries are edible and useful - once when I was a kid we used mulberries to tie-dye t-shirts. I don't like them because they are messy and by the time the fruits are ripe they're usually infested with some kind of bug, and they grow like weeds, nearly impossible to kill.

Oh, and the black walnut! Edible, but kills everything planted within many yards of its canopy because of a chemical it puts out. And if you want to eat them, it's an awful lot of work.

We have a Norway maple in our front yard. We had a tree expert come out to look at the cottonwoods to see if they were worthy of saving, and he told me that the Norway Maple, which is truly hideous, would have long since been firewood had it been in his yard. :) Ours will, soon.

---Pam

I don't know much about trees...I'm really a gardening novice. I planted a big stand of aspens in my front yard in Denver, though. I loved the soughing sound every time a breeze went through the leaves. And fire maples out back, pretty year 'round. In Colorado, cottonwoods are considered noxious weeds, and one can only buy sterile cottonless ones.

Here in Michigan we have five apple trees and two pear trees out in the back forty. I love them for the blossoms and the very good fruit. Deer and rabbit come around in fall to eat the fallen apples. They also attract lots of wasps, though. Black walnut - ugh, what a messy tree! We have one too close to the house & ponds, and the only thing its good for is providing squirrels with a winter stash. Last fall the back yard fence was a squirrel superhighway, all day long I could watch them running back & forth with walnut bounty. Don't black walnuts have medicinal properties of some kind? Maybe I can find a use for the darn thing.

I don't have anything personal against trees, but I tend to shy away from writing about them. Between Joyce Kilmer, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and Shel Silverstein, there's not a whole lot left for the rest of us writers to say that hasn't already been mentioned.

"Trees cause more pollution than automobiles." -- Ronald Reagan

"A tree is a treehow many more do you need to look at?" -- ibid.

"If you've seen one redwood tree, you've seen them all."--ibid.

"I THINK that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree. "

Ahh! One of my favorites.

I suppose it depends on your kind of writing. Trees are a fascinating part of landscape design and edible gardens, not to mention bonsai, and I plan to write a lot about them in the near future.

--Pam

The Japanese Maples are one of my favorite trees for the average size yard and larger. Both upright and weeping. Chinese dogwoods are another favorite. The variety called 'Satomi' which blooms pink is real nice. Some rhododendrons are considered trees also and can be pruned accordingly. Same with Pieris japonica. The sub-alpine hemlock is a well behaved tree that is the right scale for me and the type of designs I like. Serbian spruce fits nice too, as does the Koster Blue spruce. Katsura, and Stewartias, etc. the list goes on and it's your fault you got me started. Giant Sequoias, Coast Redwoods, and Dawn Redwoods, if you have the room.
The trees I don't like have already been mentioned.

So how do you write creatively and interestingly about trees? How do you describe a tree in a way that will grab the reader's attention and make the tree come alive in his imagination, that will invoke a fresh new way of looking at a tree and therefore the world? When it comes to adjectives, are you stuck with the ubiquitous and hackneyed 'majestic', 'weeping', 'sweeping', 'tall and green'? Well-mannered, residential-sized, year-round interest, etc. etc.?

San Francisco Chronicle columnist Jon Carroll once referred to a tree in his yard as a "slutty Lavatera." He said for years afterward, he'd meet people at parties and they'd say, "Oh, yeah, you're the guy with the slutty Lavatera! Hahahaha!" The poor man has slaved his life away, writing five brilliant columns a week, intelligently covering world & local events, politics, cultural & pop-cult trends, sports, travel, humor, pathos, cats, death, taxes, you name it, but somehow that one striking and unexpected adjective modifying the name of a tree was the thing that stuck with so many people.

Does anyone have other examples of anything fresh or astonishing or fabulously memorable in the writing-about-trees genre? Is tree-lit necessarily destined to be a dry and informative, just-the-facts-ma'am sort of endeavor, a list of Latin names that never approaches the wonder of the trees themselves? (I suppose writing about pines could get pretty sappy. ;-))

*groan* Oh God Elizabeth.

Try the Tree Forum. Some of those people can write!

Well, Elizabeth, you might write creatively and interestingly about trees by first taking the time to learn something about them, and by putting a chunk of your life into the uncovering of new information about them. Then you would not have to repeat the tired old factoids and misunderstandings that many plant writers burden themselves with. The problem may be that trees are such a compelling part of natural ecosystems, and the way to find thrills in learning about them lies in the wild. An otherwise magnificent forest tree with exciting stories to tell is little more than a prisoner or a bound foot when domesticated and stuffed into a boulevard. Having published five books on wild trees, I have met many readers who would give your comments little credibility.

Pinetree30, sorry, my "comments" were just rhetorical questions trying to stir up a discussion, hardly pleas for credibility. I really and truly love trees, honest I do, and I have studied them from a horticultural angle. But as a writer, my niche is not academic botanical works, and I'm looking for examples of other styles and approaches.

trees...earth's hair...when i pull out an unwanted sapling from the garden i think of the unwelcome grey ones i pluck out of my own head...when i walk through a pine forest i recall running my hands through a young man's thick and luxurious locks...when i drive past fields separated by tree rows i see a male pattern baldness convention

I grew up with dogs, cats, and trees as pets, surrounded as we were by Douglas Fir woods. My first lessons in self-reliance, strength and courage came from climbing these enormous trees. Rule number one in our family was that no one could help you into the tree...if you couldn't get to the first branches, you weren't ready to climb. We built assorted tree forts and stilt forts and a Tonka Toy town in our woods, not to mention a haunted woods every Halloween that attracted families from all over Portland.

These trees were such an essential part of my being that when my husband and I were married, we held our wedding between two sentry firs where the woods meets the meadow,. Our officiant told the story of Will and Ariel Durant, who described themselves as two trees, strong and independent, but whose whose roots were intertwined beneath the ground, giving them their strength.

The other night on my way to a board meeting, I was entranced by the beauty of a quintessential northwest May evening, warm and misty; dense rain clouds cloaked the shoulders of the ancient firs, creating a soft focus that magnified their timeless beauty. I could just hear the complaints -- this is nearly summer, where is our sun? But as much as I love a sunny day, I feel most at home in the rain in the woods, smelling the damp fir needles, stepping upon the spongy duff, surrounded by shades of deep green and grey, knowing the comfort of such physical and spiritual shelter.

Thanks, Lianne and susanne...good stuff. Exactly what I had in mind.

Lianne and Susanne have written some fine words, but aren't these more about their reaction to trees than about the trees themselves? Many writers, when in the course of writing about trees run out of ammunition, lapse into a narcissistic description of their own psychology, leaving actual tree information in the back of the bus. It's an example of the fixation that American "nature writers" have with their visceral reactions to nature. They really write about themselves. If you are going to write "about trees", as Elizabeth brought up, rather than about self, then in a sense you are a science writer, not a nature writer. If you don't think factual prose about trees can fly, then read John Muir or Donald Culross Peattie.

These threads are all muddled in my mind now....I began by saying only write if you have something to say. Not drivel. Then I said "say it out loud first, before you commit it to paper". Yes, I want some science in there, some research that I haven't found myself, something to make me enjoy and finish the article. But now I also have another side to me. I enjoy reading to find out about the person writing the piece.
My daughter has studied dendrology and can recite many boring facts. (as well as others of course!) But she plays a game with kids in summer camps that is admirable in my eyes. Each child in turn is blindfolded. The child is led to a tree and given time to "research it". She can smell, touch...whatever to her heart's content. Then she is lead back to her cabin. The blindfold is removed, and she is to go find "her tree" with her eyes this time. The kids LOVE this game. All summer long they are protective of their tree and respect others' trees too. They learn a whole new respect and admiration of nature. Some of these kids never SAW a tree before. I love it! This game combines (for me) the science and the psychology.

There's certainly a place for cut-and-dried just-the-facts-ma'am text books and reference books. I wouldn't trade my Liberty H. Bailey volumes for anything. But that's not really "garden writing." I always welcome the evidence of a good writer's impressions and imagination woven throughout the narrative.

That's a fabulous game, gardenbug! I wish I could get someone to play it with me.

Maybe we'll get together and play some day!

I think that calling facts cut-and-dried can be a way of downgrading knowledge painstakingly accumulated. Facts are verifiable statements that anyone can establish. Thus they have an element of universality. If I were starting to garden on the surface of the moon I think I'd want more factual guidance than imaginative impressions to suggest what to plant where. When I visit bookstores I am always amazed at the great numbers of cookbooks and garden books that keep coming out of the hopper. Most of those garden books look pretty factual to me, and I assume the authors think of themselves as garden writers.

Well, maybe we just disagree semantically on the difference between a "garden book" and a "reference book." To my mind, a garden is so much more than just a list of the plants it contains. Not all gardening books (or articles) can be classified as works of reference, but that doesn't mean they don't contain useful facts and information. The difference is in how the facts are presented.

By "cut-and-dried" I mean the facts stand alone, unembellished: "Glabrous sparsely branched tree to 120 ft. high, leaves 2-4 inches across on long slender petioles." Yes, it can be very useful. No, it doesn't "downgrade" the knowledge. Yes, that's the kind of straightforward information some people want sometimes. Yes, there's certainly a place for these books. I myself own many of them.

All I'm saying is it's not the style of writing to which I, personally, aspire. And it's not the kind of book (or article) I, personally, read cover to cover, for pleasure.

I don't share your hostility towards writers who dare to include their own impressions, stories, personalities, and imaginations in their work. In my experience, to do this well requires considerable talent and creativity. And while reference books are fine and adequate as they are, I enjoy garden writing where it's clear the author has done more than just gather and present a cornucopia of carefully organized facts.

I have to admit that I am scanning tonight since you people have been talking a lot and I have been busy with the party that started as a party on a Saturday from 4 - 7 and bloomed into a six day affair if you count the time from the first guest who arrived to the last one to leave. The last one left at 8:45 pm today. *small grin and a little sigh about the fact that is over*

Let me just share one story from the party. My half sister arrived via train from her one bedroom apartment in Hell's Kitchen to our home in suburban Main Line Philadelphia last Friday. She was raised in Berkely, CA by two parents that are actually children but somehow she got her act together after much success coaching, therapy, and ever other kind of help providers you can imagine. She is now a very happy and successful maseusse to the VIPs and also an actress/dancer/playwrite, etc.

So anyway, she jumps out of hubby's suv, gives me a hug, looks around her, gets mist in her eyes and heads toward the shrub and tree border on the back north side of our yard. She breaks into a run and says "I gotta hug a tree" and guess what tree she hugged? The first Liriodendron tulipifera she came to. I thought she was just gonna burst with happiness.

The Liriodendron (Tulip Poplar) is a native here and it's great that the builder left the stand of 100' trees. Unfortunately, they have sensitive roots and are VERY close to the house and they were terribly stressed by the construction five years ago. Not to mention owner neglect and the damn drought.

To save as many of these majestic trees which are both messy and have naked trunks so they basically look like telephone poles with a tiny canopy, we have done a number of things. First, we removed the Norway Maples that were sucking away all of the water. Then, we called in a very specialized Arborist to fertalize and prune and help the trees get back to health. We really, really want these trees to survive and prosper. And, we really, really don't want these trees to come crashing into our home if we have a big storm.

So I guess I've gotta stop here but I don't think there is any reason why you can't put the facts together with a human angle. Unless you are purposefully writing a boring reference book. BTW, Michael Dirr writes reference books and he is anything but boring.

Or, maybe it comes down to what my good friend Elizabeth said in another post which I am too lazy to search for at this late hour. But the jist of it was that you need to keep in mind your purpose, target audience and so on to determine how much human interest/context there should be and how much "just the facts, m'am" there should be.

Gosh I am tired and I'm not even packed for my stop smoking spa camp yet.

I've missed you people!

You can't talk anymore because I will be gone until Saturday and, if you keep this up, I will never get to read all of these interesting posts. Welcome to the newbies!!!

Lisa_PA

Lisa's going out of town. Let's talk about Lisa....and trees. I'll start: smoking stinks. Thank goodness she's quitting. I'm planting trees tomorrow, rain or shine: corylopsis, laburnum, cornus kousa golden star, witchhazel Pallida. They're tiny, but I'm happy.

Is there any more fortunate work for gardenbug than to be planting trees tomorrow?

I found a burr oak seedling in my garden a year ago and realized that it was in the perfect location to become the centerpiece of my backyard. It popped up in the one place on my property, midway between house and garage, where it may develop to its full majesty without interfering with any aerial or subterranean lines or pipes.

Rabbits gnawed it almost to the ground last winter (a painful lesson), but it bounced back with surprising vigor this spring, and now I expect to husband it through the next 10 or 20 years or more, should I live - and live here - that long. In time the oak will overwhelm its nursery bed, shading out the carefully selected grasses and flowers while I become too old or disinterested to maintain them anyway. Eventually the oak will take the diminishing garden's place as the object of my attention.

Not a single oak on this property.....Hmmmm. I need to think about this.

I can look out my window and see one of the best assets on our property - an American Elm. They really are beautiful trees, creating a cathedral ceiling over the residential streets here.

But man - they are horribly messy trees. Last year all the elm trees in the city went insane producing seeds, and we had ankle-deep drifts of seeds on the sidewalks, in the flower beds, everywhere. I cleaned up the beds as best I could, but I'm still spending a lot of time this spring picking elm seedings out of my flower beds.

Overall, though, I think that the elm trees here in Winnipeg are one of the prettiest trees I've seen, especially when you get street after street of majestic, mature elms.

Yesterday my four small "trees" got planted. Watered them again today for good measure as we are leaving for 3 days.
Charlotte the black Bouvier slept under our big old willow while I was doing this. When I returned she was covered in green tree flowers which looked like worms! Everyone teased her and although she looked mighty goofy, I think she took offense at being ridiculed. She was called the monster from the black lagoon. Others said she looked like an army recruit in camouflage. "PEOPLE" says Charlotte, "honestly!"

Here's a sad story in the news today, an evocative tribute to a grand old fallen oak. I especially like the part about the card table: nice image. Also the gavels. This is of course a news story with a journalistic slant, but I think it has potential to be redone as a feature story with room for more descriptive tree writing. Anyone live in Maryland?

Hi! New to this forum, but I'll offer my opinion, for what it's worth :) Here in metro Atlanta, just about any tree is a good tree, but I think my favorite has to be the old oaks. You can tell they've been here for a long time, and have roots that reach right down into Atlanta's history. Right, right, I know they're not that old, but for us, old is two people to reach around a trunk! About the only tree I hate is the one I park my car under - it drips sap? that hardens and looks like petrified water. That wouldn't bother me too much, but the cats LOVE to sleep on my car (darker color, warmer?) hence cat fur stuck to the sap, that won't come off! And wouldn't you know, I think this this tree is an oak!

Now I'll slink back into oblivion and let the experts have their say :)

Back to trees.
I'm so excited because my new Styrax Japonica is about to bloom. The Halesias were magnificent this year. The Viburnum Shasta astonishingly beautiful. A Preston Lilac, planted before I moved here, is sensational...amazing! The tsuga Canadensis is soft and lovely with its new apple green growth. The Quincho Purple elderberries are in bloom now. It is all so wonderful! I hope you are enjoying treed surroundings.

I love Elm trees. I've known them to be Chinese Elm, or Drake Elm. They provide great shade, grow fast and are desiuous here in zone 9. As a child I loved the bark flaking off and the droopy branches.

Is there a tree that an conjure up more dreams and warm you on a winter day more than a coconut palm ?

Even in a photo these graceful angels of the plant kingdom stir our imaginations ,,,

then of course God created Ash trees. go figure

Quercus virginiana (veer-jin´-ee-AHN-a) is indigenous to a large area of North America from the coastal regions of southern Virginia and North Carolina southwards into the West Indies, eastwards into the southern half of Arkansas and the eastern half of Texas and southwards from there into Mexico. It is hardy in zones 7 through 11. The Live Oak or SOUTHERN LIVE OAK is not only the worlds most beautiful and impressive Quercus species but is also one of the most adaptable of all trees and will thrive not only in cool and moist climates but in hot and arid ones as well if it is watered; it is, of course, most at home in hot and humid regions and these areas, especially the Gulf Coast region of the southern United States, are where it attains its greatest proportions. Some of the largest and most venerable old trees are found within 100 feet of the seashore along the Gulf of Mexico and show that the tree is tolerant of salty spray as well as a low degree of salinity in the soil; these old matriarchs have a number of times been flooded with salt water during hurricanes and tropical storms.
Almost all oaks live to great ages and the evergreen species, as a whole, live longer than the deciduous forms, but none are known to reach the age and size of the Southern Live Oak; there are trees still alive that are estimated to be more than 2000 years old. The tree grows to as much as 70 feet and its spread is sometimes the better part of 200 feet in very old specimens. The trunk is exceedingly massive for a tree not indigenous to hot tropical rain forests and some old trees have trunk diameters (not circumferences) of more than 8 feet.
The trunk is very low-branched and, in old trees, the great horizontal lower limbs often sweep the ground; on southern estates and the few remaining old plantations of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia this phenomenon is often accompanied by cabling or other structures to hold the limbs off the ground and to allow the grass to be mowed beneath them. The limbs of the tree grow almost entirely in a horizontal fashion and they are more or less contorted, especially on old trees. The bark of the Live Oak is deep gray to almost black in color and is distinctly fissured and longitudinally ridged.
The deep green leathery leaves are 3 to 6 inches long, elliptic to mostly oblong in shape and more or less glossy above but grayish or white and pubescent beneath; leaf margins are mostly smooth but can also be remotely toothed and the edge of the leaf is sometimes rolled under to some extent. The Live Oak naturally sheds its leaves in late winter to mid spring as the new ones start to grow and the beauty of an immense old tree covered in the luminous light green of its new growth is one of the great botanical wonders the world has to offer. The tree is also reported to be naturally deciduous--i.e., not briefly so but rather for a considerable period during the winter--in the northernmost and/or coldest parts of its range and zones of adaptability.
The tree is fast growing, especially when young, if provided with adequate and regular amounts of moisture and a soil that is not overly limy. The species is variable as to size and form and there are several different naturally occurring varieties at the extremities of the trees range, none of which in any way matches the glory of the type as they are generally much smaller in stature and slower growing.
There is no more beautiful thing on the face of the earth than an old live oak; it matches the grandeur and beauty of even the largest tropical banyans and, especially when festooned with Spanish Moss (Tillandsia usneoides), is a sight that can bring a lump to the throat and a tear to the eye.

I'll second that! When my ex-husband and I spent a winter in Brunswick, Georgia while cruising on our sailboat, I ran every morning around the old courthouse, which was surrounded by these magnificent trees. Really nothing like them, and this opinion from a Pacific NW person.

On the other hand, I adore ALL trees, without exception. The "messes" some trees make are just inherent parts of their "personalities."

To the person who talked about the sticky gum under the cottonwoods. Did you know this is the ingredient for the famed and Biblical "balm of Gilead"? Just crush them in a little oil, preferably olive oil or another light vegetable oil and you have a healing balm.

I'm a newcomer and I just have to speak in defense of cottonwoods. For the past nine years I have lived on a 40-acre farm that has several large areas of timber. One of these areas happens to be between our house and the road. In that patch of timber, there are at least four large cottonwoods, one of which stands only a few yards from the house. Messy or not, I love them. No doubt it is easier to be lenient about messes since we live in the country, but I think the cottonwoods are just about my favorite of all the trees here. The time that I appreciate them most is on those hot summer afternoons when the Kansas wind swirls through their leaves and I close my eyes and imagine that the sound I hear is a cool, rippling brook. So I'll keep my cottonwoods, thank you, and accept their "balm of Gilead" for my soul.

I like Japanese Maple for color and form. Japanese Snowbell is a nice small tree. Actually, Ceanothus ______ 'Victoria' I think started as a shrub in our own yard, but it starting to become a nice 4' tree from 15" two years ago.

It is very unique to figure out for pruning. It needs ends of limbs reduce a bit for the first 2 years. But it is making for a nice tree form.

Flowering Plum are quite brittle.

Sweet Gum hold leaves to late in areas of snow and ice.

Maples such as Red Sunset, etc., are nice choices.

Spruce are often too thick to prune and thin.

Deodar Cedar is very elegant and controllable. Atlas Cedar is fine too.

Arizona Cypress is doing fine here.

Flowering Cherry are pretty, but they can develop surface roots so large, that these should not be placed within 15 feet of hardtop.

Weeping Flowering Cherry is like a rag on a stick. What a mess to prune and fight disease.

If there is room, and a few needles don't bother someone, Giant Sequoia is very nice.

Western Hemlock is very elegant.

Parrotia has a beautiful branch structure.

Beech trees are worth enduring a few aphids - excellent form.

Himalayan Birch ought to be on the street tree lists.

This is base of a rather massive experience background - 6 golf courses, 2 university campuses, about 2000 residential pruning contracts, and touring about 4,000 residences on the west side of Portland and its suburbs.

I could go on, but short on time.

Treemaster(s),

My dad transplanted a young burr oak in my back yard and managed to get all of the tap root so it has actually done pretty well. The small tree has developed a pronounced Y about 18 inches off the ground with no prevelent leader. Do you have any suggestions for pruning this small tree to a desired form? Thank you for any advice

As pretty as I think they are, I believe Jacarandas must test the patience of anyone who has them as street trees. In the town where I live (but thankfully not on my street) they are planted in many parkways. This time each year we see their sticky, purple blossoms fall from the branches and stick on virtually anything they come in contact with. One lady said tracking them into the house was bad enough, but then noticed that huge roaches (waterbugs?) were attracted to their sweet nectar. She said one night as she looked out at the parkway grass, the grass was actually moving due to all the bugs crawling through it and feeding on the sticky blossoms.

Now I'm trying to find out the name of a deciduous tree with beautiful fragrant pink blossoms (March/April). The trees grow fairly upright and tall and have an airy look. The leaves are about 1" wide and 2"-3" long. The trunks are rough with crevices growing vertically along them. The flowers fall and create a mess, but I don't believe they're sticky like Jacarandas. At least I don't think so.

a grove of aspens share a
common root system -- a possible
united front story --

I second the comment about those plums being brittle. I'm trimming our Thundercloud constantly because of breakage due to wind. However, it's way worth it, knocked my socks plum OFF this spring.

I'm becoming a fan of Camperdown Elm here, but miss the olives, melaleuca and pepper trees of So Cal. And the Canary Island Palms, wilted though they are.

Cryptomeria is awfully nice for the ferny tree look, and I'm liking the Lindens as well. All these trees that are so fabulous and I'd never even heard of them before we relocated.

I'm a late-comer to this resurrected thread but I have to add a few comments of my own.

Some of the earlier discussion talked about different styles of writing about trees. One book that I thoroughly enjoyed is called "The Trees in My Forest" by Bernd Heinrich. It's out of print but I was able to get it through my small-town library's interlibrary loan. It's not a technical reference book or design manual but I learned a lot about trees while enjoying a good narrative as well.

My favorite trees have to be our native oaks. To my eyes, nothing is more spectacular that an oak that has been given room to ramble, with its gnarled brances reaching low to the ground in some places and high to the sky in others. Some show the effects of weather, either in their wind-driven leaning or in the scars of long-ago storms. Bur oaks with their corky bark have held up against the ravages of praire fires. These trees are the survivors of our corner of the world.

So many people complain of the messy trees; what would those trees say about us in return? I don't think I'd want to hear that conversation. At our former home we had mulberries growing wild at the back of our tiny suburban yard. I can't think of a mulberry without remembering my two young children sitting on the very top of their swingset, munching away on the ripe mulberries. In their minds, this tree covered with sweet berries was like a candy store left unlocked by the owner.

When the Greenwood School was being built many years ago, no one thought twice about cutting down the old black walnut. When my husband's grandfather offered to haul away the tree, it was looked upon as a favor. He cut that tree into boards, and when we were married he built a small table for us. That lovely wood now graces our great room. A taste of a black walnut cake could change your mind about the messiness of these trees. And I always relish those days in fall when the black walnuts at the back of our property turn bright yellow. On rainy fall days, the trunks of these trees stand out as deep black lines against the golden yellow and I find myself wishing I was an artist who could capture the starkness of that contrast on canvas.

Forgive me for this as I rewrite Robert Frost:
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And I, I chose to love the messy trees...

V.

Regarding "Messy Trees", we have just dug up the roots of a Chinese Elm that was originally planted 23 years ago. My husband, in his more innocent days, thought you could cut down a Chinese Elm and that would be that. Not so, the roots live on. Even 15' away from the tree and I'm sure, 30' down, these roots are waiting for their comeback and are relentlessly inching up to the surface to send up many more trees.
The tree was cut down in the first place because it dripped sap in the summer, pollen in the spring and seeds in the fall, all before covering the ground with leaves when the cold arrived.
They are beautiful trees, but not for town.
There were two other messy trees we encountered whilst camping. The caterpillar laden trees up at Sequoia National Park near the Giant Redwoods were one experience. I don't remember whether the caterpillars were dropping from the Redwoods themselves or from other surrounding trees. The picnic tables were forsaken for eating lunch in the car.
The second occurrence was the "Turkey Vulture Trees" at Morro Bay State Park. We arrived early and chose the prettiest site in the park. The rangers advised us to pick another site since the Turkey Buzzards roosted in the Eucalyptus trees above that campground at night-time. We chose one nearby and were entranced by the arrival of the buzzards that evening,floating in over the park and settling in the trees. They would make themselves comfortable and then watch the people, pets, cars, and campfires below until everyone was asleep.
The only problem was that they kept roosting closer and closer to our site. The night before we left, the man in the site next to us had his brand new red car bombarded. He had to take it to a car wash the first thing the next day. We left just in time.
Actually....is it fair to call these trees messy when they are just being hosts to messy critters? L.