Messy trees...

[cairistiona]

You've heard me complain about oak tree pollen and how bad it is. Well, the pollen storm is over and now it's time for the oak flowers themselves to drive me bananas.

Seen individually, they seem so innocuous.



Little racemes, maybe three inches/8 cm long.

But it's the massive AMOUNT of them that's the rub. Here's two shots of my driveway. The photo on the left shows the white gravel where there's no oak trees directly over the drive (it's mostly hickories or male oak trees, which don't have flowers). The photo on the right is directly under just TWO female trees, both of which have barely started dropping their flowers.



It's ridiculously bad this year. They snag in Domino's fur and onto his little feet, and the cats drag them into the house on their little feet. I have to use the leaf blower every morning on the deck because it's covered in them anew each day. They snag in my hair, on my clothes... on the potted plants on the deck. Everywhere. The house has oak flowers all over the floor. Auuuughhhh.

This has been going on for two straight weeks now, because different varieties of oaks bloom at different times (we have blackjack, white, and red oaks, mostly but with a scattering of post oak and I'm pretty sure chinkapin and scarlet, though I'm not positive. The differences are subtle and some of them look pretty much alike). As I look up into just those two oaks and see just how many more still haven't fallen...

*contemplates firing up the chainsaw and going all Paul Bunyan on their trunks*

I won't. But jeez. It's tempting.

Comments

[shirebound]

You're under attack!

Shiremom didn't stop sneezing until she moved to desert-y southern California.

[cairistiona7.livejournal.com]

I do love the green-ness of this part of the country, enough to put up with the sneezing and the mess. But it is definitely sneezy and messy. :/

[just-ann-now.livejournal.com]

And then in the fall oak leaves all over the place. Gah! I don't miss that AT ALL about the old place. (Actually, I miss very little about the old place, and my new gardens are rapidly replacing the old one in my affection.)

[cairistiona7.livejournal.com]

The leaves for whatever reason don't bother me much, probably because even though there's a ton of them, they don't really stick to everything and get tracked in the house. But yeah, it's yet another thing to deal with when you live in the woods.

(Oh, and I appreciate you tagging me for the gardening meme on FB but man, I have had *no* time this past couple of weeks, what with all the CACW stuff going on and... cleaning up after oak flowers. :/ But I have it on the backburner as something to do eventually!)

[just-ann-now.livejournal.com]

Not to worry! I know you take lots of nature pictures and will get to it eventually!

[claudia603.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, the infamous oak flower! *sigh* My allergies are so bad, although my bad chest cold has disguised any allergies I normally have!

[cairistiona7.livejournal.com]

So you know my pain! LOL It's a gorgeous tree for about 47 weeks out of the year. Those other 5 weeks are iffy.

[ellynn-ithilwen.livejournal.com]

Ouch! :(
Good luck!

[cairistiona7.livejournal.com]

Thank you. Fortunately, it's fairly 'easy' to deal with. They don't actually stain anything, so it's almost like dealing with fall leaves. Most of the time they can simply be swept away, except when they get tangled in pet hair. :/ (It occurs to me that I should also be grateful there's no smell whatsoever, either when they're in full bloom or when they decay.)

[bluegerl.livejournal.com]

Erm... would it make SUCH a hole if you - erm - 'removed' the ladies and planted men?

And what a load of VARIETIES of oak you have!! Chinkapin and scarlet sound WONDERFUL... must google them!

They're wonderful.. and not a bit 'oaky' until you find they make acorns. What a LOT of varieties.. and so colourful. Ours just go green darker green and then gold or copper then brown. The scarlet one is so prettily leaved too! wheeeee

[cairistiona7.livejournal.com]

Erm... would it make SUCH a hole if you - erm - 'removed' the ladies and planted men?

No no no no no... I'd feel like I was committing murder! They'd make a huge hole, not just in the landscape but in my heart. The trees that make the mess on the driveway in this photo are amongst our biggest and oldest. Giant things easily 60 if not 70-80 feet tall, and heaven only knows how old. (They can live up to 400 years!) I don't think ours are *that* old, but given that we've cut down a few trees with much smaller trunks that proved to be 80-90 years old, these might be pushing 200 years. For all that I complain and whine, they've earned their right to mess up the "newcomer's" driveway and deck. :)

(And I'm not sure how easy it would be to figure out male vs female in a sapling, as apparently with some varieties there are flowers on both.)

They're wonderful.. and not a bit 'oaky' until you find they make acorns. What a LOT of varieties.. and so colourful. Ours just go green darker green and then gold or copper then brown. The scarlet one is so prettily leaved too! wheeeee

Oak trees have a subtle beauty in the fall. Not flashy and showy like the aspens or sugar maples, but they have a warmth and subtlety that I've come to really appreciate. Our woods are probably 80% oaks, mostly white oak that turn a sort of russet brown in the fall, but they make the bright yellow of the hickories really stand out. And the red & scarlet oaks really look pretty against the bright blue October sky.

So while I may whine and complain... I do really love my mighty oaks. :)

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

Erm... would it make SUCH a hole if you - erm - 'removed' the ladies and planted men?

Could Bluegerl have accidentally solved the question of the Entwives?!!

[suzll.livejournal.com]

Omgggggggggggggg. They used to have a lot of these at camp, but usually they'd be mostly cleared away by the time campers arrived. Staff training, though...EVERYWHERE!!

This reminds me vaguely of the walnut tree above my parents' house...every fall, inevitably, they splatter all over the sidewalk and pound the roof so much I'm always convinced someone's trying to break in. After 26 years of trying to be at peace with mother nature, I think my mom has finally cracked--I wouldn't be surprised if the tree's gone before the end of summer.

[cairistiona7.livejournal.com]

We have a hickory tree that looms over the metal-roofed shed and it sounds like a WWII bombardment in the fall on windy days. :P But it's in the back of the back yard, so not bothering anyone, so long as you know what the racket's all about.

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

Oh my goodness! I mean it's all well and good having your own Yellow Brick Road but...

[cairistiona7.livejournal.com]

I'd take yellow bricks over oak-flower-clogged gravel any day.

[ysilme]

I feel your pain annoyance. I love trees to pieces, and those I love most are also those that cause a lot of annoying debris down here where we little hoomins live. Take my favourite kind of pine, for example, who has needles as long as these oak pollens, and pine cones that dent your car roof if they drop on it - our neighbour across the street had such a beautiful specimen, but it got cut down last year (it still pains me to think of this). We once had rented a holiday cottage in Denmark with lots of these around, and the needles in various stages of decy and drying out were literally everywhere. The airing slits at the top of the bonnet of our car were totally clogged each morning and were hard to remove. Or birch pollen which get absolutely everyhwere. Or the fine yellow dust of the huge Tuscan cypress that lives in front of our house, which coats every surface in a sticky film seemingly all year round. Clean the windows, turn around, and they have a yellow layer again. *sigh*
*hugs in sympathy* But at the same time, I envy you the variety of oaks you have just at your door...

[cairistiona7.livejournal.com]

I guess we shouldn't be so surprised that trees, being living organisms, can create huge messes, but boy, it does aggravate. I've often envied those in the southern US who have the magnificent pine trees but after your description of your own variety of pines... I'm no longer so envious! (And those must be some HUGE pine cones, or at least very dense and heavy, to dent a car. Yikes.)