Questions regarding Aspen trees

7 years ago

I had a fight with my husband last night. We recently bought our first house in Colorado. We have these weird sets of Aspen trees growing in the front yard. There are in sets of 3-5 trunks. They look dumb to me. After reading up on pruning trees, it seems that it's not smart to have the trees in such close sets like they are. Also in each set they have one of he trunks that are dead or dying.

I told my husband that we need to cut them down, and on the upside, we can have some firewood for the winter. He insisted that he is in love with them, and we need to keep them in tact.

Please give me some insight on what the appropriate course of action should be.

Featured Answer

gardengal48 (PNW Z8/9)

7 years ago

Yes, aspen are not at all solitary. In fact, they tend to grow in colonies or groves with an interconnected root system so all the trees are essentially a single organism. The largest single living organism on the planet is considered to be an 80,000 y.o. grove of aspens in Utah, consisting of some 47,000 trees that are genetically identical and have a single, interconnected root system.

If you don't like the aspens - and there are good arguments for not growing these trees on a suburban lot (see above) - then you need to negotiate with your hubby for a suitable replacement :-) But clumps or 'sets' of aspens are very common and they will go on to create even larger clumps via root shoots as time goes by.

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Comments (12)

Huggorm
7 years ago
As long as they have some access to sunlight, growing in groups isn't any problem. Aspen does not usually grow as solitaires, they are "social" trees. Besides, they make really lousy firewood.
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ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
7 years ago
perhaps we should begin with a complete and full ID .... jsut to make sure we are all on the same page ...

research whether it is a good wood for the fireplace.. many of the soft wood trees burn too hot ...

BTW .... i hope the first thing you do with your new house ... is have the chimney cleaned before first fall use ... i presume its not new built if you have dead trees out front ...

ken
Rachael Chitty
Original Author
7 years ago
Thank you all for the feedback. Then I guess my main argument now is that they just look silly in these weird clumps in the front yard. I have nothing against Aspens except for the clumping. I was trying to negotiate and say we couple keep one in each clump, but it sounds like that is not a viable option. I will look into whether it's worth burning the dead ones.
edlincoln
7 years ago
If he is in love with them...keep them. It would take years for a new sapling to reach that size. Get rid of the dead ones. Then go plant some tree you like.
PRO
Caldwell Home & Garden
7 years ago
Could you post a picture so that we could accurately identify them? I would not recommend aspen trees for a front yard landscape, I can provide replacement suggestions if you like.
wisconsitom
7 years ago
As has been adequately driven home here, aspen is a colonial species (whether quaking or bigtooth aspen) and each individual stem or ramet is but one part of a larger organism. While I may not plant aspens in my smallish city yard, where space permits, they are beautiful trees, if a bit temporary. In nature, aspens are early-succession species which set the table-so to speak-for successive waves of other tree types. In your yard, perhaps you can somewhat mimic this process by perhaps planting young fir or spruce trees in the midst of the aspens. Aspen produces light shade which is the ideal situation for what amounts to a tree nursery for later tree types. Look into it-you may just discover a world of wonder. Or maybe not!
Embothrium
7 years ago
Aspen is a signature tree in Colorado - there is even a community called Aspen. Because of the aforementioned, eventually very extensive creeping habit the groupings of trunks you are looking at there could all belong to a single specimen - so that cutting off all but a few of them in each tuft would be like cutting most of the branches off of a more conventional single trunk tree. The main practical problem with planting or keeping this species in developed settings is this underground spread - new stems may start popping up here and there, some distance from the existing ones, in the manner of a running bamboo.
wisconsitom
7 years ago
.....or, to follow another recent thread in Shrubs I believe-sumac! Nice plants, much to offer in the aesthetics department-they just won't stay put. Plus, any one stem is the very definition of impermanence. Had a boss once-actually a Dept. Director, so I might have assumed greater intelligence on his part-wondering out loud to me what fungicide he should be using on his sumac "up north". Sheesh.............talk about pointless!
Huggorm
7 years ago
At least, wait until fall before cutting those trees down. The fall color might make you change your mind.
wisconsitom
7 years ago
Excellent point, Hug. A stand of aspen in the autumn is a sight to behold indeed.
spedigrees z4VT
7 years ago
I adore our quaking aspen trees. We have two in our back yard and several others in a swampy area to the side of our yard, and all may be parts of a whole.

Here is a photo-saga of the life of our original quaking aspen tree.

http://forums2.gardenweb.com/discussions/3767068/m=23/the-lifetime-of-a-quaking-aspen-tree-in-pictures

Questions regarding Aspen trees

gardengal48 (PNW Z8/9)

Comments (12)

Huggorm

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