I’ve said before that I’m not the most observant person around but today just floored me. I was coming home from work and noticed trees growing by the barn. I went out to investigate at the same time as the husband called on my cell phone. I asked if he planted trees. He said no and I described the location. He said I was crazy and that they were probably big weeds. (We have killer weeds around here.) Since that was my first thought too I was heading out to check.
That’s no weed. It is about 7.5 feet tall. It isn’t alone either. There is another one about 6 feet tall and about 10 under 3 feet tall. On the back side of the barn there are two more big ones. I did see those before when I was stringing the fence but dismissed them as killer weeds.
We don’t go in that side of barn but we drive past it everyday. How can you miss those? From the leaf id website I found I think they might be eastern cottonwoods.
Oh ye gods!!!! Not cottonwoods!!!! DH just cut down some of the cottonwoods that were bordering our yard. They horrid trees, reproducing themselves endlessly it seems (no matter how one tries to get rid of them). I believe they are the weed of the tree world. And they shit sticky leaf-covering-pods worse than a flock of birds shits poo on one’s vehical! Your animals will begin coming in the house with these sticky leaf-pods clumped up in the fur of their feet. And when the “cotton flies”, you wind up with the danged stuff clogging your air filters on your vehicals, floating through the house if you’ve got windows or doors open (and clogging the screens if you’ve got those on your windows).
Don’t get me wrong, I find nothing wrong with trees as a rule (and I truly like birds, most of the time), but I strongly recommend cutting the danged cottonwood’s down, and planting birch or oak or walnut or chestnut or maple or alder or aspen or just about ANYTHING else in their place!!!!! I’m not even kidding! And the stench, the cottonwoods have a very strong turpentine odor to both the wood & the leaves, as well. Just horrid!!! I mean, seriously…. Cut the things down now, save yourself the heart-ache, and plant some choke-cherries in their place!!! At least the choke-cherries will feed birds. I don’t know anything that eats from a cottonwood.