One thing that always makes me shake my head is how careless homeowners are when it comes to selecting trees for their landscape. Since all new neighborhoods are blank slates, tree sales are a brisk business here. People get impatient for shade and mature landscaping, and they ask for the fastest growing trees possible. They end up with brittle trees that cost a fortune to remove 5 years later.
Our master gardeners and extension service works hard trying to get people to make better decisions, but they still go ahead and plant cottonwoods under electric lines. They curse the power companies for "butchering" trees when the companies proactively trim limbs away from lines, when I think they should be fined for causing outages. I had a neighbor who moved to Arizona because her child's allergies were too bad here. I asked her why on earth she let the wild cottonwoods grow in her yard and she didn't get it. A chainsaw might have cured the allergy issue, and it definitely would have helped mine!
I love looking at tall trees, but i sure don't want them near my house!
Rant over...........
Heading outdoors to plant the 4 trees I bought yesterday!
