Am i the only one that has a black walnut tree next to their driveway
Discussion Forum
Discussion Forum
Up Next
Video Shorts
Featured Story
Skim-coating with joint compound covers texture, renews old drywall and plaster, and leaves smooth surfaces ready to paint.
Featured Video
Highlights
"I have learned so much thanks to the searchable articles on the FHB website. I can confidently say that I expect to be a life-long subscriber." - M.K.
Replies
No.
Move your driveway.
or, move the tree.
I saw a picture of a 100 year old oak tree getting relocated.
Call Jet.
He was drooling over the walnut David Doud was using for the walls on his outdoor shower at PeachFest this summer.
Nope, several here on the estate in NW Oh.
A Great Place for Information, Comraderie, and a Sucker Punch.
Remodeling Contractor just outside the Glass City.
http://www.quittintime.com/
Do this be a complaint or a boast? Those nutz can give you a serious crack in the head if'n you get in the way!
My tree is estimated to be 165 years old and still growing. 65 to 70feet tall. Way cool.
It's over on the other side of the house and every two years it makes mowing the grass an dangerous job. They be hard! Either the mower spits them out or they drop on your head.
If you are a squirrel hunter and the neighbors don't mind a good size black walnut is a serious magnet for those critters. I've had red, brown, gray and black (Canadian imports) squirrels out there fighting like crazy over those nuts.
Since the going rate for a pound of them is around $25 I'm thinking I might just start drying them out and selling the innards to the local market. Lot of work and the husks reallllly stain....but they are great tasting! Took out 3 wheelbarrows full a couple of years ago.
OK, what was the question? Oh, by the driveway? Nope. But glad it isn't.
ciao, ted
$25/lb for them pesky little buggers... game on!!!Those little red ones sure are fast though...;-)
Edited 10/1/2008 8:36 am ET by Squash
LOL
The reds are like a nerve ending on steriods. Wish I had their energy! And they are mean, real mean, like 'hungry pit bull' mean!
Takes about 20pounds of the nuts that fall to get out the meat. Tastes like a cross between a walnut, pecan and touch of chocolate. Great in cookies!
ted"You can have it fast, good or cheap. You can only have two of the three. Fast and good, it won't be cheap. Good and cheap, it won't be fast. Fast and cheap, it won't be good. Now, what's your choice?"
time to whip out the hard hat?
I'm just sayin'
SnoRk!
Couple of years ago the thing has a bumper crop and I did put one on...and I got smacked a couple of times. Yowza!
t"You can have it fast, good or cheap. You can only have two of the three. Fast and good, it won't be cheap. Good and cheap, it won't be fast. Fast and cheap, it won't be good. Now, what's your choice?"
or live with it -
they are what they are; dirty, dangerous, always dropping something, full of aphids/honeydew in the summer, allelopathic, and attractive to wildlife -
how big is it?
about 25-30 feet tall
remove and replace with more desirable tree, you should be back to that size in 10 years - might consider an american elm - either the 'liberty' (I think), or 'princeton', or 'valley forge' culltivars that are DED resistant or one of the 15/16ths american/asian elm hybrids - still might get some honeydew, but not much else- "there's enough for everyone"
How can you say such a thing David? .. Sure there are downsides to blackwalnut.. Heck there are downsides to those elm you speak about. (personally I'd rather cut off a finger than trade a Black walnut for an Elm)
If you are concerned about black walnut's toxicity to other trees you should plant them as mother nature does.. close together so they grow up tall and straight.
Black walnut has unique properties (and I'm not speaking about the squirrel feeding ability either) it's one of natures taller trees that improves the silhouette of the tree line. In addition it forms a natural barrier from a lot of diseases that trees can get.. it's late leafing and early shedding makes room for competing plants to survive and adds to the biodiversity of the forest.
Working with wood from a black walnut is one of life's pleasures and even the scraps burn nicely. Working with elm is a agony that should be reserved only for child molesters and serial killers... Slivers of Elm has been known to slide under the fingernails of woodworkers in their sleep and instantly becoming massively infected. Any wooden item made with Elm is prone to warping, twisting, and in general behaving like a juvenile delinquent. On top of that exposure to moisture of any kind will cause the wood to instantly rot. Finally as Moonney has said, burning elm is like burning churchyard mold
easy, frenchy - a small tree that is causing issues in a residential setting - not a big loss - not talking about rouging out all specimens in a woodlot - admittedly we do not have full information on this specific situation, but it doesn't sound like we are talking about a historic heritage tree - I live with legacies of 170 years of ancestors - I feel no compulsion to endure all of them - "there's enough for everyone"
David
I could tolerate many things but trading a Black walnut for an elm? My friend you have greatly overstepped the boundaries of rationality! <grin>
(I do hope you enjoyed my rather vitriolic attack on the elm)
the loss of the american elm as a residential tree is one of the great quality of life losses of my lifetime - I do not look at every tree from a lumber perspective (as hard as that is to do for a woodmizer owner) - the vase shape, filtered shade, and light foliage of the american elm make it the single most suited species for tree lawns and residential use - you can grow shrubs and flowers and lawns under it! - - a weed is a flower out of place - walnuts over driveways are weeds in most circumstances - "there's enough for everyone"
You plant the black walnut next to the driveway, so that you can drive over the husks to get them off. However, you must then always park the car in the garage, otherwise it will be covered with the goop off the leaves, and dinged by the solid tennis balls. My parents have a tree that was full-sized back when the house was built, in 1907. It's at least a three man tree in girth now....
David
Under the spreading chestnut tree the village smitthy toiled..
I disagree with the idea that the elm was somehow a great tree. Those annoying little seedlings which fluttered down and plugged everything. It's rapid growth which tore up sidewalks and made the concrete edges busted from roots darn near lethal.
Not only side walks but curbs and even streets where broken up by the elms aggressive root system.. (not to mention their love of sewer lines).
Given a choice between the bare results of denuded boulevards and the canopy of elms above that were there earlier I can understand your appreication.
However the loss of the chestnut is far worse. (at least you can eat roasted chestnuts unlike those nasty seedlings). Chestnut wood could be worked and was a common houshold wood where white oak was scarse.
OK put back chestnuts and keep the ash,, save the black walnuts and a few beech,, then maybe I'll let you slip in one of your cursed elms <grin> here and there. Just not in my yard please.. I've removed all my elms this summer.. More space for apple trees.
I have one that my wife's ex planted. Some special Carpathian walnut or somesuch. I found one walnut the other day--the squirrels eat many of them before they are even ripe. I actually think the squirells put the ripe ones in our driveway so we can run them over and shell them for them! The nuts I have been able to get haven't been worth the trouble it takes to shell them, IMO. Like the wine grapes he planted. I tried to drink unfermented juice and had to add almost an equal amount of sugar per unit volume to make the juice drinkable--I thought wine grapes would be sweet in order to make the alcohol!
The tree that's a real nuisance is the spruce on the other side of the driveway that has lower branches covering about a third of the driveway and my wife gets mad when I trim them! I prune them when she's not around and try to hide the trimmings under other stuff I've pruned! She gets mad too when I prune the forsythia, taking one third of the canes each year, but it blooms like crazy and by the summer you can't tell it was pruned. No matter, because right after I prune it looks too thin.
Edited 10/1/2008 7:52 am ET by Danno
No, learn to live with it. IMO they're a special tree. Dad's still got he dozen or so I grew up with. Parked cars under it forever and no damage, but maybe not true for newer cars with thinner metals.
Mine is about 25 feet from my driveway. and attract among others a white (albino) squrrel. Between my apple trees, cherries and plum tree I feed squirrels well. Well also rabbits etc..
and Owls! Must not forget those noisy owls who love to swoop down and attack some nice little rabbit or chipmunk who thinks he's in for a real treat.
Mine is right over the carriage house and hangs over the drive a bit. You should have heard them hit the roof during the wind storm last month!
The house I grew up in had 6 mature black walnuts and one that was about 5 years older than me.
I have memories of filling up multiple 32 gallon trash cans every fall with the "fruit".
My dad like to throw them out in the street and listen to the popping sounds that passing cars make when they hit the target.
Jon Blakemore
RappahannockINC.com Fredericksburg, VA
When I lived in NE Ohio, I had a slew of black walnuts on my property. At first, I thought that was really neat.
It was not. Black sap on the windshield, baseball-sized hulls in the grass that hated my lawnmower. And those trees were the last to get leaves in the spring, first to lose them in the fall.
With the exception of the heartwood (which I was never able to harvest), they really are a bad tree.
"they really are a bad tree."
I did some reading up on them a while back thinking that since I had the land to do it I would start a cash crop. Takes about 10 to 12 years to bear fruit. Ok, I can live with that.
Come to find out that they are considered one of the worst trees to plant around any other trees. Their root system gives off a chemical that stunts other trees. Thought that was a bit much until I looked at a row of scotch pines that I have within the drip line of my walnut. They're about 45years old and have only grown to about 12feet.
'cept for the meat of the nuts and the wood they are really not a good tree.ciao, ted "You can have it fast, good or cheap. You can only have two of the three. Fast and good, it won't be cheap. Good and cheap, it won't be fast. Fast and cheap, it won't be good. Now, what's your choice?"