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General discussion

Help! I'm being attacked by a sycamore tree!

Feb 17, 2004 4:42AM PST

Well, not by the tree itself, but by whatever the seeds/fruits/nuts of sycamore trees are called...

they are round brown things covered with spikes.

(There are uses for the pine cones from my own trees.)

My neighbor has the tree, and those whatever they are called blow into my yard. It wasn't so bad last year, but this year has produced a bumper crop, and almost cover the ground.

What makes it worse is that they cover the steps to my door, which makes a trip down or up rather dicey. They all get stuck in my dog's fur.

I just picked up a bag full from them.

But I wonder how best to gather them up from the yard. When weather permits, could I use a blower to get them in piles to pick up? I fear they would stick to the tines of a rake.

Anyway, I'm hoping somebody here has dealt with them, and can advise me.

Thanks,

Angeline
click here to email semods4@yahoo.com

Discussion is locked

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Are you by any chance talking about.......
Feb 17, 2004 5:14AM PST

the seed pods? I think they are too heavy for a blower to work on themSad Maybe instead of using the lawn rake a heavy tined rake used for gardening would do the job?
Wish I had more help to offerSad( I mostly deal with cactus and weeds and Palo Verde seed problemsSad( Those darn Palo Verde tree's grow all year long here and have some terrible thornsSad

Glenda

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Re:Are you by any chance talking about.......
Feb 17, 2004 7:15AM PST
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Blower and the light tines rakes work fine
Feb 17, 2004 5:18AM PST

I've got one in my back yard. Can take a little longer blowing but if they are dry they aren't heavy.

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Re:Blower and the light tines rakes work fine
Feb 17, 2004 7:16AM PST
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It's a cool tree
Feb 17, 2004 5:33AM PST

It does make a mess three different ways, but it's beautiful anyway. The fruit is fun for tossing at your siblings and neighbor children and the tree, itself. If you have a good arm and a ripe fruit it will explode on impact into a thousand little seeds.

Lots of fun.

Ummm...I don't know how to clean up after them, it was our neighbor's tree.

Dan

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Re:It's a cool tree
Feb 17, 2004 6:14AM PST

Dan, I am not familar with this type tree, but it sounds like a pretty Nasty tree. I think Angeline was looking for help in dealing with it, Not start a war with the neighbors.
Maybe, I'm not fully awake yet and missed the punch line.

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Re:Re:It's a cool tree
Feb 17, 2004 7:31AM PST

What Dan said was all in fun. And we can use some levity when we're having a problem. Happy

It is actually a very pretty tree, and has huge leaves. Even now, after the leaves have dropped, it makes a lovely picture. The bark is almost white, and glows in the sunrises and sunsets. So, it's really not nasty - just messy with these seed things.

Angeline
click here to email semods4@yahoo.com

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Re:Re:Re:It's a cool tree
Feb 17, 2004 7:58AM PST

Thanks Angeline. Sounds like a beautiful tree.

George

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Angeline, you need a .......
Feb 17, 2004 10:14AM PST

pecan-picker-upper. Happy (I think)

This little unit would be found at a hardware store for around ten bucks. It's basiclly a small can/container fastened at the bottom of a short broom handle. The handle would be approximately three feet long. The bottom of the container/can is not solid and has little spring type bands across. You would hold this unit like a walking cane and walk around and stab the little balls and the springs separate allowing them gather into the container. You can then trash them, or offer them to the owner of the tree. Happy Most container's will hold approximately a quart of pecans (an idea of size.)

Just a thought. Happy

mojo

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Do they really explode on impact? Cool! Get some
Feb 17, 2004 10:41PM PST

neighborhood boys who want to play wild west or soldier. Tell them they can take as many as they want. Happy

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Sycamore, it's a great climbing tree.
Feb 17, 2004 10:51AM PST

Probably one of the first I ever climbed when a child, very easy to go quite high. The bark is smoother too, so not as many scrapes. When I came back from overseas I visited my Dad's place in St. Petersburg, first time I'd been to that house and the Florida sun made the back den a broiler. I went out shopping at the local nursery's looking for a nice spreading cottonwood, but no one had any. They have great round leaves with small serations on the edges, of course they put out the flying cotton with the small seeds, but their main attraction is the great shade, quick growth, and the way the leaves flip back and forth in the slightest breeze, almost talking to you. I decided instead to get a couple of sycamores. His whole back area, the upper half was asphalt paved, so we cut two 4x4' areas out with an axe and put them in about 10' apart. That was 17 years ago. One only grew from 6' to 15' so far, I think it lost too much to it's brother tree and an oak nearby. The other tree is taller than his house, probably over 50' tall now and for years already has shaded his back den area, cooling the whole back of the house down. They do have some bright emerald leaves and easy to rake up too. The seed pods aren't too bad at Dad's since they can sweep them up.

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Re:Sycamore, it's a great climbing tree.
Feb 17, 2004 11:16AM PST

Hi James:
Sounds like a great tree. Serveral years ago I sent a donation to "Save The Trees" foundation or something like that. They would send back 10 trees to plant. In the batch was a Tulip tree. I planted this little tree in the front yard not knowing what would happen. It had the biggest leaves I ever saw, grew about 5ft per year, Tangled up all inbound wires. It finally cost me $800 to cut it down. Stay away from that tree unless planting in a field. Beautiful tree, but big and has all these string bean pods hanging off it.
We do pretty good with the Maple and Oak up here.

George

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Was that a Tulip poplar?
Feb 17, 2004 1:42PM PST

I've planted two of those in my yard, one for quick shade over my deck area. It's been about 13-15 years and it's as tall as the 80+ year old oak trees. They seem popular here in Maryland area.

Downside is some of them have large seed pods, similar to the magnolias, and they loose their leaves earlier than most other trees. Aphids also attack them early, usually cultivated by some sort of ant. I've seen the aphids attacked by small wasp and later ladybugs. The ladybug larvae and then the beetle itself quickly follow the aphid phase. It's not the best tree I think for overshading the deck during the aphid phase, I usually have to pressure spray the aphids off. I discovered if I control the cultivating ants when they first start attracting aphid flies to the tree, I can avoid a lot of the later aphids. It definitely has a large life cycle that uses it.

The upside is their leaves decay quickly like maple leaves do and don't damage the grass if you cut them up with the mower, unlike oak leaves with their high tannin content. I planted that near the deck because it was guaranteed to be the fastest growing tree east of the Applachians. They can get quite big though over many years. There is a huge beautiful butterfly that comes from large caterpillars that eat the leaves. I had seen the trees in the parks around here, but if I had realized at the time how much insect traffic they attracted I would have picked something else to shade the deck.

At the time I planted them we were getting hit hard by the gypsy moths on the oaks and I wanted trees that weren't affected by those. For several years I had to band my oaks and pick 50-100 gypsy moth caterpillars off every day for weeks and drop into a bucket of hot soapy water to kill them. Later the moths that hatched out would leave yellow fuzzy egg sacks all over the siding on the house that I had to scrape off each year. Now a small beetle seems to control the gypsy moth around here effectively.

The tulip flower

Tulip Poplar leaves

The whole tree
This is about the size of my two, probably a 20 year old tree in this pic.

Tulip Tree Moth (female)

Tulip Tree Moth - good pics

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Re:Was that a Tulip poplar?
Feb 17, 2004 10:53PM PST

Hi James:
Sorry for the late reply. I had retired for the night. That appears to be the tree alright and it was from the popular family. Smooth Bark. I do not recall the moths, but it sure had the Ants. I really liked the tree, but my mailman said the roots will crack the foundation the way it was growing, not to speak about a good hurricane or ice storm.
We are not having to much trouble with catapillars. Did one year way back and what a job they did. Lost a lot of trees around here. At night I could actually hear them eating up in the tree. I had more chemicals & sprays going, today they would call it WMD. Trees wrapped in tinfoil at the base, the whole works. They never touched those rotten Pine Trees. We live practically in a Pine Grove. They are the most useless tree. When the pollen starts in the spring, I have seen days when the visibilty is only about 3 houses up the street.
I did have a lot of trees in the back yard. Oak, Maple, couple 150 ft Pine. Putting in a new septic system a few years back took its toll on the trees. That Title 5 system takes a lot of area, not to mention the additional area they need to install it.


Thanks for the pictures. Came out very good.

George

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Lots of tree pics here.
Feb 17, 2004 2:12PM PST
http://www.mattoon.k12.il.us/hawthorne/Tie%20In%20Trees/

If you look near the bottom you can find some pics of a sycamore tree and it's fruit and leaves. Also look at the catalpa (we always called them catawba) tree and see if that's the one you meant with the long seed pods. Grandad had several, mostly large bush size, growing near his chicken coop. We would pick the caterpillars off it to use for fish bait.
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Re:Lots of tree pics here.
Feb 17, 2004 2:23PM PST

Catalpa worms are great fishbait, especially for crappie and catfish. For any fish really, but you can really bring home the crappie and catfish with them.

DE

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Stay away from the Box Elder trees
Feb 17, 2004 10:05PM PST

Or at least besure you get only the males.

You would not believe the number of boxelder beatles that will gather on the female, particularly in the fall.

We had an infestation a few years ago. I sprayed with a pump up spray every day around the house for weeks trying to keep them down. Think the poison was vitamins for them. Killed hundreds every day though, and still kept coming. They love to sun themselves and will cover a sunny wall, particularly a light colored one. Then when the sun goes down they crawl in cracks to avoid the chill. And get lost and come out inside.

If you crush them will leave a red stain, their dropping are red and stain, they don't die in cold weather, just somehow hibernate. They will come out even during cool to cold weather on a warmer sunny day to sun themselves.

I didn't get rid of them until I got a hose sprayer and soaked trees, bushes, roof, ground everything with spray. And still saw a few. And neigbor had an old barn he had to 'bomb' multiple times fall and spring.

I think they also like silver maples, but the female box elder tree seed pods are their favorite food.

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Re:Stay away from the Box Elder trees
Feb 17, 2004 11:13PM PST

Hi Roger:
Boy, I hope you keep those varmits down there in NC. The Silver Maple is pretty popular up here, along with Red, and Swamp Maples. Beautiful in the Fall.
My daughter, granddaughter, and Greatgrand kids all live up in The Northeast Kingdom of VT. One lives over in St. Albans, VT. Every fall, just before Columbus day we go up there, and I'll tell you its a sight to behold going thru the mountains. Breath taking beauty.

George

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they exist all over the country already, tough buggers, search boxelder bugs
Feb 18, 2004 12:01AM PST

It only kills the bugs you spray, and no residue that can kill for a while and/or discourage others from the area, but laundry detergent mix seems to kill directly sprayed ones almost as well as poisons.

I think it's a 1/2 cup per gallon of water, a lower sudsing type is recommended. Actually I've read that soapy water works pretty well on any bugs sprayed directly on and is less toxic. It doesn't penetrate and kill any in cracks and crevices.

They really are attracted to those female box elder trees. I've got one in my front yard. If it was my lot instead of a rental I'd get rid of it. But any close by can draw them. They fly and walk well according to the information I read other year. And I looked at a lot of sites trying to get rid of them. Last year didn't ever have a real problem. I keep an eye out now and at first sign of immature ones try to spray the tree trunk well. And then spread dry general specticide on the ground in the area and in a band around my trailer with a spreader. Of course you have to wet that in. That seems to prevent the buildup of nuisance populations.

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Re:Have you tried Bag Balm?
Feb 18, 2004 12:39AM PST

I used to rub it all around the base of the tree and wrap a clothe around it or rub it into the clothe, then wrap it around tree covered with tinfoil. seemed to work pretty good with the caterpillers.
Bag Balm is a paste type salve. Is used to rub on Cows Teets. I'm not kidding. Ask an old farmer. I had to go up into VT to get it. It attacted the catapillers and they got stuck in it.
All these bugs, etc that go up into a tree to eat, have to come back down for water usally once a day. Thats when you get them at the base of the tree.

The can I have came from " Dairy Association Co., Inc.,
Lyndonville, VT 05851" Might try something on line.


George

George

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Re:Re:Have you tried Bag Balm?
Feb 18, 2004 12:43AM PST

I'll keep it in mind if problem reoccurs.

But these also fly from tree to house and from tree to other trees and bushes. But perhaps it would kill the adolescents that don't fly yet.

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Re:Re:Re:Have you tried Bag Balm?
Feb 18, 2004 12:54AM PST
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Re:It's a cool tree
Feb 17, 2004 7:24AM PST

My brother and I would have had a great time with them! Happy We did have those "horse chestnuts: and "hedge apples", but too dangerous to use as weapons.

Angeline
click here to email semods4@yahoo.com

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hehehe We used over ripe plums as weapons:))
Feb 17, 2004 9:02AM PST

We sat on the roof and pelted other kids with them:))
The worst was when they got us backHappy Sure made Mom mad trying to get plum stains out of our clothesHappy

Glenda

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Slingshots and Chinaberries for us. (nt)
Feb 17, 2004 10:53AM PST

.

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My brother used those too:)
Feb 17, 2004 11:28AM PST

ON ME!!!!! those things hurt! LOL

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Re:It's a cool tree
Feb 17, 2004 8:05AM PST

As Angeline pointed out its all in fun.

I apologize to you for not seeing the humor in it.

George

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No biggie!
Feb 18, 2004 12:05AM PST

The escapades of children can seem vicious when described in adult language. It was all in fun. Well...it was fun for us. Our family has pretty good throwing arms. Happy

To get the best explosions, you really have to use an inanimate object.

Dan