I removed this wonderful full grown tree last year and I'll admit it was always a love/hate thing i.e. great shade and privacy but what a bother! Never have I seen a tree produce soooo many nuts that were everywhere, and we have a slew of squirrels. Also, my neighbor was thrilled I nixed the walnut since it was on our property line and she's already nuts. I took the tree down over a year ago and am in the process of doing 2 really large Cleveland select pears on either side of the remaining stump which is now a base for a planter (hey, it was flat!). My question is, from what I've pulled off the internet these trees should be ok dealing with the juglone that will remain in the ground for years to come. Now,someone tell me these will be fine so I can sleep at nite. I wanted fast growing, flowering trees and saw that my choices were rather limited because of the juglone problem. Any thoughts on that would be really appreciated if only just to make me feel better. By the way, I'll be posting pics of my gardens sometime soon, or soon as there's something green, that is! I'm very proud of the fact that it shows what can be done with a small city lot. Regards from a "newbie", can't wait to hear your thoughts on my tree dilemma!

We discussed the black walnut on the thread If you could permanently eradicate anything from your landscape

I found this list of things to grow under the walnut...
http://garden.org/thread/view_...

Having killed the walnut, the juglone problem is going to be far worse than if you'd kept it.

I'd have been using the nuts, or gathering them up for sale...
I want an entire grove of walnut trees!

Tell me that you kept the wood... You could at least do some arts and crafts with that wonderful walnut...

I just searched Cleveland select pears...
Oh Noes...

Callery pear is considered an exotic invasive... very undesirable... nothing stops it... seedlings everywhere... babies coming up from the roots all over the yard... stinks when it blooms...

Edit:
Ps...
Welcome to the forum...

Hi Randy, to All Things Plants!

I know nothing about Black Walnut (Juglans nigra) ... only that I love baking with walnuts! As a matter of fact, I just took a couple of loaves of Banana Walnut Bread out of the oven! I too hope that you or someone else kept that great wood for crafts etc.


As stone mentioned, while very beautiful the Callery Pear can be invasive and seems to be spreading across the U.S where it is displacing other plants/trees and they produce such dense shade that it's difficult to get anything to survive planted beneath them. The Division of Forestry lists it as an invasive plant of concern in Ohio, scroll down page for information: http://ohiodnr.com/LinkClick.a...

More information here: http://www.nps.gov/plants/alie...

And growing information in our database: Flowering Pear (Pyrus calleryana 'Cleveland Select') with some information.

I wonder if there are varieties of Pear that are not considered invasive that would work? It's such a shame that nurseries and garden centers continue to propagate and sell invasive species. Here in Florida there are so many invasive plants that take over and yet they are always found at our local big box store garden centers.

Look forward to seeing photo's of your gardens!

Welcome Randy. As stone said above, you shouldn't plant anything you're not absolutely sure of. Even then, I wouldn't spend a lot on anything until you're sure they'll grow. i.e. they survive a whole summer season, and through the winter (when roots will still be growing) Start small and experiment.

You say you are "in the process of doing 2 really large Cleveland select pears". Does that mean you're intending to buy two large trees to start with? I wouldn't spend a lot on large trees, to be honest, if there's a chance they won't survive the juglone soil problem. Certainly don't buy two! I'd start with one small (less expensive!) tree, give it a year or one growing season, then make a decision. Definitely don't buy something that has any potential to be invasive - you think your neighbor is crazy now? Try having a hundred baby trees popping up in her yard to make her worse.

You might be wiser to spend money on a guy with a stump grinder, and a backhoe, removing the walnut stump, roots and at least some contaminated soil from that area and heavily amending with fresh soil and compost so you can be more confident of growing whatever you plant there. Don't forget that under the soil are many huge roots spreading at least as wide as the walnut tree's branches were, and all the soil around those roots is going to be contaminated to some extent.

Our neighbors in Utah removed a huge black walnut tree from their yard, and even years later they were still having to replace sod just to keep grass growing over the tree's remaining root system.

stone said:We discussed the black walnut on the thread If you could permanently eradicate anything from your landscape

There are people here who don't have, or don't know how to use the find function on their browser, and aren't going to read through 453 posts to get to the 454th post where walnuts are first mentioned. I am really sorry for anyone who gave up trying to follow Stone's link, so I thought it would be courteous to mention it here. A pdf found through his link, albeit in a circuitous manner, is quite good and I provide the link it below.

stone said:Having killed the walnut, the juglone problem is going to be far worse than if you'd kept it.

I can only imagine the dismay that was caused by this statement. I'd like to see some evidence for this assertion before I acquiesce.

Is this what you are talking about? From "your" pdf found in google (a very good one I might add) http://webcache.googleusercont... :
• Is removal a solution? No. Cutting down the tree will not solve the problem for a long time
because juglone can persist in the wood until the roots are decomposed, which can take five years
or more. Removing a walnut tree may not be practical when the tree is the focal point in a
landscape.

True, removal is not an immediate fix for the juglone toxicity, but no where does the pdf remark that toxicity gets worse, even in the short run. Am I missing something? If so, it would really help out everyone to direct us to the correct source of information.

Picking up nuts to sell is a very common thing to do here, one year we paid for Christmas with pecans. But even though this tiny town has like 5 places that buy nuts, nobody buys black walnuts. Last weekend we took a giant plastic tub of them to the lake and hit them into the water with baseball bats. Walnuts in food are almost always English walnuts, a much easier nut to crack.

That looks like a lovely spot for a redbud tree, a smaller native tree with beautiful pinkish purple flowers in the spring right before the pretty heart-shaped leaves come out. They are known to be juglone tolerant. Baby redbud trees do grow fast, but are not weak-wooded trees like pears.

When you have a really fast-growing tree, its' wood is weak, and not able to stand up to strong winds, snow & ice like trees with stronger wood. I would never plant any tree with the primary attribute of 'fast-growing' - especially in such tight quarters where dropped limbs are sure to damage something, and in Cleveland, where you're sure to get ice and snow every winter.

A dogwood might be another option, though it might be a bit too sunny in that spot for one to be really happy. IDK about their tolerance to juglone.

Years ago, in Iowa, I had a Black Walnut in my yard- the only problem I had was growing Tomatoes (it was rather near my garden). We went out of town for a week and remarkably, the tree was cut down and stolen while we were away!
Since I detest eating Black Walnuts and it was ugly tree, I was (secretly) pleased the thieves stole it. I planted a Weeping Willow very near the stump and it grew just fine. As for residual effects- none were noted. In fact, my tomatoes the following year were almost perfect. btw... about 40 or so feet away, there was a Red Spire Pear (another clone of P. Caleryana ). It seems to do just fine.
Perhaps there is some genetic difference between trees as to how much juglone is produced by any individual.

Thanks for the replies everybody...I will start by elaborating on why i decided on the Cleveland select pears. First of all, when i did my research just a yr ago I found no bad press on these, and the reason I went ahead is because they are supposedly as immune to juglone as it gets. Secondly, there is very little space between the fence and the driveway, and those trees being columner in nature sounded like a hit. If anyone has ever had a full grown walnut, they'd understand the inherent problem along a driveway during fruiting season which is long as hell! You CAN'T park under the tree,EVER, unless you want pockmarks all over your car. As well , I put box after box after box, no exaggeration, of these things out at the end of the drive as well as trashcans full of nuts and there were never any takers even 'tho I posted signs for free nuts. So then I called the Cleveland zoo and offered them and never got a call back not to mention my neighbor on the other side of that fence where the blessed walnut was who was going "nuts" from the same problem. On one day I pulled my lexus convertible out to pack up for a trip to dads in Pa and in the TEN MINUTES THE CAR SAT UNDER THE TREE A SQUIRREL, DINING FROM ABOVE, DRIPPED WALNUT JUICE ALL OVER MY WHITE LEATHER SEATS. All in all, being a gardener with a long history of planting (I have more books on the subject than the local library) you need to know how much I agonised over the removal of the tree even with all the above going on! And now this vantage point from the balcony outside my second floor bedroom looks like a housing development. So there you have it with my choice of trees. Small flowering lovelies have their place but I want the cover I lost for privacy....and those of you who rhapsodize about having your very own walnuts need the acreage to go with it. Where the heck were you when I couldn't give them away? As far as the thread goes...save it for the uninitiated...sorry!

I don't think anyone was chiding you, everyone agonizes over chopping down a tree. It's definitely frustrating when you realize your walnut tree is 'the wrong one.'

Cruel irony dictates that this pecan tree must go. For some reason this yard doesn't have what I thought was the required pecan tree, except this, which can't be allowed to stay that close to the wall.


If you search "bradford pear invasive" you'll find tons of 'bad press.'
Ohio department of natural resources:
http://ohiodnr.com/LinkClick.a...
Ohio invasive pest council:
http://www.oipc.info/Conferenc...
US Forest service:
http://www.na.fs.fed.us/fhp/in...
National parks service:
http://www.nps.gov/plants/alie...
A thorough article in Bioscience magazine:
http://mipn.org/Callery%20pear...

Did you look into redbud trees at all? There are indeed a glut of pics of baby trees, and hard to find pics of fully leafed out mature trees grown without unnatural pruning, but they get 30 feet tall, with a very dense canopy, probably providing more privacy than you had from the walnut, branching out well above the ground, making it possible to drive or walk under them easily. The last redbud sprout my Mom relocated in her yard got taller than her house the 3rd year. It's a 1-story house, but on an uneven lot, so the roof is about 15 feet at that end. The trick is to find a nursery tree that hasn't been pollarded to branch out a an unusually low height. You might still not like it, but it fits the requirements you described.

I'm sorry you're so frustrated! Your story is worth a few acorns, although I wouldn't recommend starting an oak tree there!

Good luck with finding a replacement for your tree. I don't have any suggestions but I can completely understand wanting a little privacy. Where I live now, there are no trees for shade or privacy. I live off a major thoroughfare, and the city recently improved the corridor with some trees. But they are still quite a distance away from the slightly elevated yard. So it is much like being in an aquarium when in the yard because it is a corner lot. I'm a renter and would love to convince the owner to plant some trees in that large strip outside the yard that I have to take care of and where there is only rocks, instead of trees that offer some shade from the afternoon sun. I think just two trees would be wonderful. Especially if they were evergreens.

Thanks for the replies everybody...we're now going to move on from the nut tree since it's gone but again I thank you for your support and suggestions. I apologize if I offended anyone in my "retort". I am aware there is a bite to my bark sometimes and I think I'm still in mourning mode. Any time a tree comes down I feel a pang in my gut. A few months after the walnut incident on the side of the yard a crew from the electric company showed up and chopped down a large ash that bordered the rear of my property on the neighbor's side, this time due to the dreaded ash borer disease. I was in tree hell last year! Religious practice in the far east dictates there is no yesterday or tomorrow, just here and now. So although the future may not exist I look forward to doing over the gardens this year and a huge cash outlay to boot. My friend Dianne tells me I redux the beds EVERY year. Obviously she isn't a gardener. As any real gardener knows, we're never finished. I looked at her and smiled

Randy, you're a far better man than me.

Well Rick, I don't know you, but I'm a far better man than I used to be and I'll bet you are too! R