Growth Facts Hardiness Zone: 5-9 Mature Height: 60-65' tall Mature Width: 5-6' wide Exposure: Full Sun Spacing: 4-8' apart Slender Silhouette Sweetgum Bower & Branch Trees and Plants Liquidambar styraciflua 'Slender Silhouette' Regular price$475.00Regular Price Shipping Included In Stock - Order Today invite both neighbors to bbq and quit being a pussy. This is to save the cost of grubbing out. begin by pounding a copper nail at a downward angle at the base of the tree you want to kill. Such is the case with the so called gumball trees, which produce fruiting bodies lasting over a good portion of the vegetation season. This site is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com. (04/17/2009). If you read some other articles on this blog youll see The Rangers strong views on invasive species. It deals with a common problem in suburban horticulture: that some of the most popular decorative trees become with time a bothersome nuisance. Ready to tackle another bothersome tree problem? Hogwash! Youll kill the grass, you might destroy fences, and youll certainly hurt your property value. Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window), Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window), Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window), Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window). I have never heard of a tree being killed by copper nails, but I have heard of one being killed by the superstitious practice of embedding copper coins into the bark for luck. We and our partners use cookies to Store and/or access information on a device. Many thanks. Sweet gum trees are great landscape trees. You can adjust for clear view and wont harm tree. Ask not what your country can do for you but what can you do for your country. My only problem now is finding any long enough. The other product, Snipper, is injected in the trunk and the label is for commercial applicators. To assure prevention of lasting damage to the tree, copper inserts should be removed at the time of gumball maturation in control (untreated) trees. The figure above shows which apple cultivars bloom during the same time. Use of the word surgeon is deemed pretentious, whereas arborist rolls off the tongue nicely with its flowing 3 sylables. Also that a trees roots extend as far sideways as its branches do. In fact, youre going to want to make an entire ring around the base of the tree, making sure that the nails are all at the same angle as the first one with an inch to an inch and a half of separation. I don't like gathering up the thousands of "spiny balls" either, but I do enjoy the shade provided by the one tree we have in our front yard. My husband and I went on a scavenger hunt trying to unearth as many as possible, we dug up as many as we could. I heard you can drill a hole in the tree to its core and drive a copper ground rod in there and within a year it should quit producing balls ????? Member Price $12.99. Learn how to stop sprouting tree roots. There are enough people on the other side without me joining in. The only edible part of the tree is the dried sap which makes a fragrant, bitter chewing gum. Only Matthew Allen is correct on this one,the scientific conjecture is hog wash(they probably make medical implant devices! A tale from Berlin, where the 2006 World Cup fans filled the city, and the urinals, suggests a more enlightened alternative. Well I am an 80 year old woman with a mean cop next door who does not care that his trees and roots are growing more toward my side no matter nice I try to be. Only the ones that were on my side of the fence. Proud sweetgum tree owners know the plants glossy, green summer glow and rainbow fall leaves cant be beaten. Sweetgum - Eliminating Balls | Walter Reeves: The Georgia Gardener For the best chance of stopping the sweetgum balls, hire a certified arborist. (for both the tree and the fastener system?). Reading through all these postings, I didn't see anyone mention the feature of this tree that I enjoy the most - crush some leaves in your hand and they produce a smell like turpentine. It was expected by June 9-15. I am not an urban troublemaker. Yes, it is a bit of work, but it makes use of them with minimal handling. At the end of the season, I just dump the whole thing in the compost pile and don't have to dig out the rocks. Gents, something in your pocket kills trees and its not a copper nail. Potted - 1 gallon container. Alternatively, you can also use Foliar Spray Method, copper nails, salt, muriatic acid and even overwatering to kill the tree without . How do I stop my sweet gum tree from producing balls? Your advice would be greatly appreciated. Not sure, find your own web info at your own risk. The chemical breaks down into ethylene, a naturally occurring compound that sweet gum produces when under stress. Sweetgum is native throughout Kentucky, except the Bluegrass. Ive been advised to fix our bat and bird boxes high in the canopy with copper nails, so I was glad to find this article, it has put my mind at rest. And the popping and the crackling of the sweetgum tree seeds in the fire sounded like music to our ears. Contact your local environmental consulting team to find out how you can partner with Davey Resource Group on your next project. (i cannot afford a tree surgeon). Sweetgum tree leaves are star-shaped, large palmate leaves with three to seven lobes. In New Zealand there's even an opposite myth that says that you should put copper nails into fruit trees to protect them from disease. I prefer the minimalist approach, use them as a mulch around the sweet gum tree. You could riddle the trees with bullets; eventually you would kill it, but the cost of the ammo would break you and you may well kill someone with the over penetrating projectiles. Helical items dont drill holes, there inserted into the hole the drill bit made. No problem here. If a sweet gum is flowering when the chemical induces ethylene production, it responds by aborting the flowers. This sister tree is fast-growing and looks identical but does not drop the irritating tree balls. Sweet Gum Trees For Sale | Buy Sweet Gum Trees Online | TN Nursery Thank-you. I ordered the product on May 31; received it June 4th. If you want to say goodbye to those balls for good (without yearly treatments), replace your tree with a fruitless sweetgum tree. This is a page about preventing a sweetgum tree from making balls. (I still want a house to come back to and a tree to enjoy ).Thank-you also for supplying me with the correct term for an arborist. So, do copper nails kill trees? (09/02/2008), For all you that don't like sweet gum trees, get some goats, mine have cleaned up every tree they could munch on and none come back because the goats eat as soon as anything on them sprouts. Anyone that wants them is welcome to them. But are they effective or even safe? The larger the tree, the less likely this method will be successful. Wantos is not a pussy. I will now look for an arboriculturalist now for advice and service. Instead of complaining get a ladder and put in some work . What is the capsule called you put in the drilled holes so they don't produce sweet gum balls or fruit? Dip drill bits, screws, nails etc in metholated spirit or 100 to 1 thin bleach dilution to help prevent infection. In short, it depends. Put your flag poles in the ground or cover up the area with mulch. To view the purposes they believe they have legitimate interest for, or to object to this data processing use the vendor list link below. After many attempts to stop them, we pounded a large copper nail at the base of each one and several months later they were down. The fool proof way to kill a tree is read this old coots article to the tree you are trying to kill, thats all thats needed. Just make sure to buy the Killzall brand. Continue with Recommended Cookies. It pricks their feet and tummies, and they don't like it. Sweet Gum Ball Harvester Picker Upper - 18 Push $ 520.00 View product; Sweet Gum Ball Picker Upper - 12 Push $ 415.00 View product; Sweet Gum Ball Picker Upper - 36 Pull-Behind $ 730.00 View product; Sweet Gum Ball Picker Upper - 36 Push $ 730.00 View product; Sweet Gum Ball Picker Upper - Stab-A-Nut $ 64.99 View product Flower and fruit: Flowers are small and insignificant. (07/22/2008), My 9 year experience with a twenty year old sweet gum tree is: 1) the spikey balls are good for nothing, except building muscles raking the never ending supply, 2) it will raise the floor of your garage an 1 1/2" in the course of a couple of months and evidently crack it, 3) the branches, at any age, will easily snap in a wind storm - and aim for your roof, 4) the wood burns well, but only after it dries for three years, AND, 5) unless you dig all the roots out once you've fallen the tree and dug out the stump, you will continue to have sweet gum starts all over your world for years. No. That is my best guess! However, the technique involves cutting the tree down to a stump and driving multiple long copper nails down . We are discussing the best method for securing a horizontal 210 joist to the side of an oak tree. (10/14/2008), If you have gum trees around your property and are able to cut them, you need to do it as soon as possible. The only way out of my property is through his land and I have a full right of way in a shared drive. It entails making a cut all the way around the bark of the tree so it can no longer feed itself. Obviously, this method probably took many hundreds of coins, perhaps thousands and wouldnt be economically viable for getting rid of a thousand chinese elms! In backyard plantings, two semidwarf apple varieties that bloom at the same time should be planted within 50 feet of each other. The tree might even grow over that nail in given time. I have also heard of making table top Christmas trees out of them, but haven't tried it myself. We are both elderly and the thought of climbing the ladder to clear the gutter and reattaching the gutter is dangerous. We have established that the simple expedient of inserting a copper nail (or a piece of copper tubing with an ordinary nail) before the actual start of vegetation suffices to achieve the desired inhibitory effect on gumball formation. Buy, Sell, and Trade your Firearms and Gear. I am hopeful that the LSU vets can do an endoscopy and remove it to prevent surgery. I had a very tough time finding a party that does this stuff. But, sure, Ill give you my solomn promise that everything I ever write is true, except this comment, which is entirely false. You dont pay enough tax dollars for someone that works a public agency to care. Covering the nail not only potentials hides what youve done, but it can prevent your yard from looking unsightly as well. I am just worried that as the tree grows the roots may rupture the mains. How can I keep a Sweet Gum tree from making seed balls? Driving a copper nail into a tree does nothing. I live in South Carolina and they are getting worse and worse every year. Having that mainland driving conversation, you should put copper nails into fruit trees to protect them from disease, where do you get copper nails from anyway, Western Chapter International Society of Arboriculture. Davey Resource Group used gray and green infrastructures to solve stormwater issues at the Graduate Conference Center in Ohio. The drill is what turns the bit. I have seen trees with hundreds of nails hammered in around the entire stem,,, they are still alive!! The thorny gumballs are worth putting up with for the beauty and joy of these magnificent trees. ThriftyFun is one of the longest running frugal living communities on the Internet. Keep hammering the copper nails around it, about half an inch apart. A tree that is a candidate for the injection must have a trunk at least 2 inches in diameter, and the tree cannot have received a spray or soil treatment within two weeks. I dont want to kill the trees, but.I have 2 30 yr old maple trees that the roots have invaded my foundation.