In Defense of Trash Trees: Siberian elm, Globe willow, Tamarisk, etc.

I feel the need to come to the defense of Siberian elms, the nuisance tree that sends a snowfall of white circle-seedlings to the ground in the spring, and sprouts zillions of baby elms in every speck of soil in your garden. THAT tree. The one we used to call “Chinese” elms, but that isn’t Chinese. 

There are a bunch of fast-growing trees that have found themselves lumped, fairly or unfairly, into the category of Trash Trees. In my lifetime, Siberian Elms, Tamarisk, Tree of Heaven (sometimes called China Sumac, or Poor-People’s Tree), Cottonwoods, Lombardy Poplars, Russian Olive, Globe Willows, Chinaberry and Fruiting Mulberry, have earned Trash Tree status. In one way or another, they’ve become criminal trees for the crimes of invasiveness, water guzzling, “salting” the soil and suppressing other plants (they’re allelopathic, which means they don’t play well with others), weakness (which leads to falling branches, illness, and short lifetimes), messiness, or smelliness. In many cases, most of the criminal charges against these trees are fully justified.

Why do people want fast-growing trees? Shade. In the desert, water is the only thing more valuable than shade. Try to imagine this town without it’s shady canopy of trees. It would be brutal in the summer without the big shade trees around here. When people first settled this area, and areas all over the West, fast-growing shade trees were exactly what everyone wanted, and what everyone planted. The “big” tree in our suburban front yard in Tucson was a Siberian elm, and it was THE climbing tree for our end of the street. The other climbing tree was a Chinaberry. They were planted when we were babies and grew up with us, creating shade in just a few years. We loved those trees.

I remember Tucson as I place I hated, and was deeply allergic to—I had what was called “hay fever”, and I had it a lot. My younger brother had it worse, my younger sister nearly died from it, and my mother was tortured by it—hay fever. That sounds so benign. It wasn’t—it was miserable, but it never occurred to me that if I changed locations, it would go away. Kids—whatever kids get, they take for granted. In truth, my dad, who wasn’t allergic to any of it, should have moved us out of that place, earlier. He thought we were all just sissies. Sigh.

 We picnicked under tamarisk (we called them Salt cedars), and I remember when Russian Olives were being used on a massive scale in brand new suburban landscapes in Phoenix and Tucson—I loved their silver-green contrast color! I remember when cottonwoods released their cotton all over the baseball park in Lowell, AZ, and covered the Verde Valley, and I remember eating drippy handfuls of mulberries off the sidewalk trees in Bisbee. We played “The Commies are coming!” in a lot covered in what we thought of as tropical foliage, and called our “jungle”—turns out they were ailanthus, or Tree of Heaven groves. The smell of the sap from those branches can whip me back to being twelve years old in Bisbee, and worrying about Khrushchev coming to get me, and my little sister.

I’m pretty sure, now, that I was allergic to most of those trees—the exception seems to be the ailanthus, which has become, oddly, my favorite tree—hmmm. A few years ago, after moving into an old house in downtown Junction that had warped casings and thresholds, it turned out my house was surrounded my semi-mature Siberian elms. My home was invaded by those little round elm seedlings, and I, who had overcome most of my allergies over time, ended up in the emergency room with a breathing crisis. I hate those damn seedlings!

However. I’ve lived all over the West, and I wouldn’t have wanted to be in any of those places without those trees. We had no idea the trees would become nuisances, and I’m glad, because it would have been unbearable to have had to live without them. None of the “trash trees” set out to annoy us—they just did what they do—nature, you know? WE turned them into nuisances when we decided to plant them all around us. It’s not the tree’s fault!

I wish we’d done things differently. I wish we’d known more and planned ahead. I wish we’d found more trees to plant, instead of relying on the trees that gave us the fastest bang for our shade buck. But, the West didn’t grow slowly—it grew up overnight after World War Two, so fast growing trees were planted. The West grew as fast as the tress they planted—maybe faster.

Now, you can buy fruit-less and cotton-less versions of many of the trees that were the bane of our noses. I don’t know if those even existed when Tucson first bloomed—maybe they were developed because so many of us got sick from those trees.

When I moved to the Grand Valley, my first-ever view of the valley was from the 32 Rd/Highway 141 entrance, and I was stunned by the magnificence of Mt. Garfield AND the big, green, globe-shaped embellishments to the tree canopy—those trees turned out to be Globe Willows, and everyone who hasn’t grown one loves them. There aren’t as many topping the canopy view now—lots of them have fallen to development, and even more were removed as home ownership changed, and newcomers discovered what a pain those trees can be. I miss them—I’m always glad to see them. I would never plant one. Unless I won the lottery and could buy LOTS of space.

 Still, when I first moved here, Globe willow shade was a blessing, and their ghostly grey skeletons against the sky are one of my favorite visuals during the winter.

I’m glad that you can’t buy a lot of the trees that bother us—no one wants a Siberian elm, and as far as I know you can’t buy a Russian Olive anywhere in the West. We all know what’s happening to Tamarisk—it has become riparian public enemy #1! The seedlings that sprout up from the Siberian elm and the ailanthus drive people crazy because there’s no really efficient and safe way to kill them. All you can do is to stress them by constantly pulling them up. Sounds like an exercise program to me!

Maybe in another couple of generations, all those trash trees will be gone. Hah! Not very likely!