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toronado3800

How many volunteers have made it into your landscape plan?

I think I have five I like and another walnut I could do with or without. Three redbuds, a cherry and a resiliant ash which survived my weedeater a decade back. There was a bur oak volunteer which did not survive transplant. The survivors are all where their seed landed.

Comments (21)

  • hairmetal4ever
    10 years ago

    I have a volunteer sweetgum I haven't yet culled, but if it again fails to provide decent fall color, it's getting yanked out. It's about 2" caliper now, about 12' tall, and in its fifth season of growth. Until now I never got more than a chartreuse color around Thanksgiving w/some red tints on a few upper leaves.

    However, this year it's got a nice red patina developing on its outer leaves...we'll see what happens.

  • Embothrium
    10 years ago

    In my area weedy trees and shrubs are common. Except for natives coming in from places where they still grow nearby the usual suspects are of Eurasian origin.

  • drpraetorius
    10 years ago

    They come in, I yank them out. Mostly Siberian elms from over the fence. I cannot tell you how much I hate those things. There is no word that carries enough invective.

  • mulchmama
    10 years ago

    Hey, a free tree is a free tree, and the volunteers require no babying like the ones we plant intentionally.

    We have two red oaks, now about 5-ft tall, several eastern redbuds which have quickly grown to 8- ft tall and have bloomed twice -- and a black mulberry that was too large to pull, found growing through a patch of ditch lilies a few years ago. It's way out at the end of our three acres, so I spared it, and it really is a beautiful tree now, easily 15-ft tall. The elm in the front near the street -- it's too early to tell if it's a Chinese or a Sibe, but either way, I want it gone.

  • lou_spicewood_tx
    10 years ago

    Just one...

    Montezuma cypress... at my mom's. It's funny how that turned out. My brother had grown enough MC seedlings so he just threw seeds into garden bed a few years ago. Somehow one seed managed to germinate and grew into nice looking maybe 10 ft(?) tree. That's the only volunteer tree we kept out of thousands from oak,elm and pecan trees.

    It just happens to be in the perfect spot because there's a loblolly pine nearby that needs to be cut down. Just doesn't look very good and risk of falling on the houses if a strong hurricane comes through.

  • Iris GW
    10 years ago

    So far I have left a white walnut (butternut?) that came in but several tree of heaven have been yanked.

    I have a soft spot for many of the oaks that come in, but some are just in the wrong place. So about 50-50.

  • botann
    10 years ago

    I get Lawson Cypress, Cornus kousa, and Japanese Maples popping up all over. Some I keep where they're at, some I move and some get pulled. A few even get potted up.
    Here's some Cornus kousas.

  • botann
    10 years ago

    I get Lawson Cypress, Cornus kousa, and Japanese Maples popping up all over. Some I keep where they're at, some I move and some get pulled. A few even get potted up.
    Here's some Cornus kousas.

    {{!gwi}}

  • bengz6westmd
    10 years ago

    toronado, like you I've allowed a B walnut volunteer to grow to 20' tall, for the present. In fact, I have B walnuts sprouting everywhere on my lot. Siberian elm, black cherry & sugar maple too, but all get whacked eventually.

    Also a pagoda dogwood sprouted in the deep shade of a sugar maple. Left that one alone as it's small & little else will grow there.

  • hairmetal4ever
    10 years ago

    I had to cut a very vigorous little sugar maple down this summer. It was right against a fence and I couldn't figure out a way to dig it with enough roots without killing my wife's azalea (I'd just as soon yank the damn azalea, it's misshapen and kind of a dud but she loves it), and it was too big for it's area.

    Damn shame too, it had the nicest burnt-orange-red fall color last year. It was about 8' tall but very few side branches.

  • Sequoiadendron4
    10 years ago

    I had a Sekkin Sugi Cryptomeria that volunteered last year. I potted it up this spring, nursed it all summer, and just planted it at the in-law's house. I have some Mahonia japonica 'Bealei' that just sprouted and I hope to pot and nurse to maturity. We also have several Blue Satin Rose of Sharon that are growing around the parent. I will leave them so they fill in the area better.

    Volunteers are great except when they are Silver Maple or Red Maple ones...those are just a pain and a half...

  • Iris GW
    10 years ago

    Mahonia japonica 'Bealei'

    I thought the name of that is Mahonia bealei? Pretty invasive here further south of you. Weeds! I pull 'em out and hack 'em down constantly.

  • jqpublic
    10 years ago

    Willow Oak, Scarlet Oak, Northern Red Oak and Several hickory (probably Mockernut).

    It's amazing how people would kill for volunteers in their area that are so common in other areas.

  • calliope
    10 years ago

    Many volunteers come up on our property some stay, some go. The redbuds grow like weeds and we've left them when their sites are appropriate. We let a shingle oak mature and remain. More than a few pine, but eventually had to cull out the Austrians as they contract diplodia eventually. Several fruit trees of harvestable quality........an apple and a peach were saved. A sugar maple I prize and a few hybrid maples were even transplanted to new sites. Several liriodendron. We always have robinia and bird cherry coming up everywhere and if one comes up near a tree we know is coming down we may leave it as an eventual replacment. I'm sure those decisions are driven by how much land you steward and this also impacts what varieties you will treasure/tolerate.

  • ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
    10 years ago

    between oaks.. cherry [serotina] and redbud....

    probably 50 to 75 ...

    ken

  • botann
    10 years ago

    I also get a lot of English Holly, Ilex aquifolium. It's only a problem if I let it get too big to pull.
    Sorbus aucuparia, is another weed. The English call it Rowan and we call it Mountain Ash.
    Prunus laurocerasus, English Laurel, pops up here and there.
    English Ivy and the ever present English sparrow are two more imports.
    So you don't think I'm picking on the English I get Prunus lusitanica from Portugal and Spain. It's a minor inconvenience.
    I'm on ten acres on a bluff, surrounded by woods on three sides. One side is forty acres with no one living on it but deer and a few elk.
    All of the above like our climate.
    Bo...the fog is so thick this morning, the ground is wet.

  • restorephoto
    10 years ago

    Visiting GardenWeb for the first time in months and catching up.

    We live in a somewhat wooded area and also had a neighbor years ago who cultivated nut trees. So, we get walnut and a variety of oak trees (especially burr and red) each year along with an occasional hickory.

    Many years ago, a neighbor had a mature C. florida. We had one come up from seed 25-30 years ago. It came up under a mature red oak and has fantastic blossoms. Except for an intolerance to severe drought, it's doing very well. It bears fruit every year, but I've never found a seedling.

    Redbuds are a dime a dozen as are white ash, hackberry and black cherry (serotina). Boxelder were once common as well, but all the mature trees in the neighbors' yards are now gone. We get several tulip tree seedlings each year from the neighbors' trees.

    It's fun to leave areas of the yard alone for 2-4 years and just watch what comes up!

    We've had two sweetgum seedlings come up along the little dry stream in the yard. They must have come in with the floodwaters.

    Dad gave me a butternut seedling several years ago. It has produced one seedling, but it only survived two years. The parent tree is diseased and I suppose the same disease took the younger tree.

    We get a few C. kousa and C. mas seedlings every few years, but they're uncommon.

  • jdo053103
    10 years ago

    I get tons....mostly elms (winged & slippery), sweetgum, oaks (willow & pin), black cherry, red maple, cedar and loblolly pine.
    I keep all the volunteers in the wooded areas, pull the ones in the beds or transplant.

  • aquilachrysaetos
    10 years ago

    A friend gave me a California Sycamore that volunteered in one of her flowerpots. In winter, I just took the whole ball of dirt out of the pot while it was dormant and plopped it in a hole. The tree was maybe 18 inches tall.

    It`s first year it shot up another 7 or 8 feet. This last year, I think it grew five. I love the spicy smell of it.

  • edlincoln
    10 years ago

    Too early to know if it worked, but I discovered a bunch of Rose of Sharon Saplings between my parent's house and their hedge (in a spot with little light). I dug up three and planted them elsewhere...we'll see if it worked.

    There is also an offshoot from some kind of locust and an Eastern Red Cedar I'm thinking about moving.

  • alabamatreehugger 8b SW Alabama
    10 years ago

    It seems like 90% of the native seedlings I find here are Water Oak, Sweetgum, Loblolly Pine, and Pecan. I have too many of those already, so I ditch them.

    Most of the volunteers that I have kept are Southern Magnolia, Sweetbay Magnolia, Slash Pine, Blackgum, and Wax Myrtle.