Thinking naughty thoughts
Botanical wrongthink on the farm
I've been engaging in badthink. (And I hope you have been too!) I know what I'm supposed to think, but my mind wanders and I have thoughts about how much I love my lawn. I fantasize about savagely uprooting the perennial native wildflowers growing in the garden as weeds. Worse yet, I gaze at the Ailanthus altissima that rise in a massive clump along the driveway and consider how majestic they look.
I know what I'm supposed to think: tree of heaven is a bad guy and shouldn't be admired. It's a plant that has recently moved categories, going from a loathsome pest due to being highly invasive, to a hellish abomination as a host for the dreaded spotted lanternfly. I don't mean to minimize the threat posed by invasive species like Ailanthus and its Chinese planthopper buddy--the potential for damage to valuable trees and vines including apples and grapes is real. But I don't believe that cutting down my stand of stink trees, as they are locally known, will have any effect on the problem.
This is botanical badthink, but more importantly for me it is also convenient-think. The trees are far too large for me to fell safely myself and getting a tree service to do it might run in the thousands of dollars. The trees can't be girdled since dead trees falling at random times into the driveway and on the neighbors’ property is neither safe nor good for diplomatic relations. The trees are here to stay for the time being.
There's nothing I can do about them, so why not feel awed and grateful when I walk by, rather than ineffectual rage? If the problem is the solution, isn't finding reasons to admire Ailanthus a laudable goal? It can be a useful tree. It provides decent firewood, like pine but not as sappy. I've used downed logs for garden bed borders. This particular patch grows on the property boundary, holding the land in place and preventing slippage and sinkholes created from the neighbors’ maniacal mowing. In the Savanna, the cornfield-gone-wild on the other side of the driveway, I haven't spotted a single sprout despite close proximity and little initial competition. These trees are not a nuisance to me, and by stating this fact I am in no way denying that they are huge pests elsewhere.
I'm not planting more Ailanthus trees, nor do I encourage anyone else to do so. Quite the opposite. I control the spread of my colony by cutting suckers before they grow too large for me to handle. A few years ago I noticed a red oak sapling on the edge of the patch, and was inspired relocate two more oak volunteers from the vegetable garden to the Ailanthus grove. Trees of heaven only live about 75 years and as they die the oaks can utilize the space and nutrients left behind. In the end the Ailanthus will disappear, but on nature's timescale rather than at human insistence. I may not be around to enjoy mature oaks, but in the meantime I'll be admiring the young ones every time I pass by.
I guess patience just happens when there's nothing you can do about something. I have cut down a few of the smallest ones myself, and have a friend with a chainsaw who might take out the medium size ones. I had no idea colocasia was invasive farther south. I just dug mine up and put them in the basement to allow them to survive the winter here!
Oof, you are more patient than I! One of the first things we did when we moved in was rid our shoreline of Chinese tallow. Of course the entire pond shoreline is covered in it on other properties and people leave them because they do have a nice fall color but also because folks don't know any better. Meanwhile we're inundated with colocasia, too, and if we didn't try to tame it the shoreline would hold nothing else. I do leave some of the lesser problematic, invasive, herbaceous weeds because it would be never ending. And sometimes they are pretty. Maybe luck with come around and someone will want to fell them for you.