Trash Trees -- or Treasured Trees?

The tree-removal specialist glowered up at the branches overhead. "Black locust," he announced. "Yep. We can get it out without harming the fence. I can get that old mulberry, at the same time if you'd like me to. Won't cost much more, really."

"Nope," my husband replied. "Gotta leave the mulberry. The wife likes it."

The arborist shook his head. You could almost hear his lecture about crazy people who didn't know a good tree from a trash tree. "It's not a good tree to have around. And just look at that cottonwood in the other corner of your yard. They can be dangerous trees. Wood's too soft. If you get rid of the trash trees and get a good tree, it'll be lots less trouble to you. No branches coming off in high windstorms. Won't fall down on your car. Plant you something good like an oak or something. Now THERE'S a real tree!"

"I'm afraid the wife really likes these," my husband said mildly. "I couldn't talk her into getting rid of them."

"Women... " the arborist muttered as he marked the black locust we wanted removed. It was obvious to him that tree-hugging liberal ex-hippies didn't have the sense to tell a bad tree from a good tree. But we were looking at the trees from different standpoints and the plants he thought were unworthy of being saved were real treasures to me.

What makes a tree a 'trash tree'? Often these are native plants that simply want to grow in their native soil. They're not the fully shaped (often imported) plants developed by generations of breeding and cultivation. Sometimes (as with the cottonwood and the mulberry) these are quick growing trees -- which is good in one sense (it doesn't take decades to have a nice-sized tree in your yard) but bad in another (the wood tends to be soft and heavy limbs DO break). Trees that grow quickly also die at a younger age; most don't last over 40 or 50 years; a blink of an eye to the very slow-growing redwoods.

The other type of trash tree is one that tends to hang onto life with all the gusto of any sports fan. Take the durable mesquite tree of Texas; a thing of feathery leaves (and sharp thorns in some of the species); a spindly creature that looks more like an abused feather duster than a proper tree. In most places it wouldn't be considered a true tree since it seldom grows over 25 feet tall in the dry desert environment. It forms dense shady thickets where cattle hide from the long hot summers. While this is great for cows, it does little to endear the mesquite to cowboys.

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