This is a black walnut in my backyard. It's the last to leaf out in the spring, and the first to drop its leaves in the fall. But I love it. We eat under it, lie in our hammock, play, and lounge. I am so grateful to whoever built our little house 100 years ago, because they put in all the right trees, in all the right places.
2 comments:
A big shade tree is a wonderful thing. I feel sad that the biggest one I have really needs to come down. It's a silver maple at the end of its lifespan.
Does your walnut kill everything beneath it? I had understood they were allopathic.
I love a big shade tree! Our best one is a walnut too. We have a tire swing under ours. Your hammock sounds better. Sigh...
About the allopathy, that's true I think. I have tall grass growing underneath my Walnut--but not much else for yards and yards. I think anything within 50-100 feet of the tree is affected by the toxicity of the roots. Things like roses and nightshade plants and berries won't grow within that range of a walnut tree--or so I have read. Unfortunately it doesn't stop poison ivy, Ive discovered. Hmm. The guy that built my house back in the 30s was a tree surgeon so he was very clever about how and where and what he planted around our house. Our mulberry's branches are all tangled up in the branches of the walnut making a lovely big shady area but he was clever--he planted them across a culvert from each other (where our creek used to run when it overflowed before it was rerouted) so the roots don't reach out and touch each other. They look like they are side by side from a distance but when you go over beside them you see a 4 foot ditch between them (like a cement arroyo). Interesting huh?
So you get walnuts right? Do you know where the female tree is? Is she huge too? Ours is a little smaller than the male but offers up some pretty shade too.
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