Tree Talk: Boxelder
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- Опубліковано 7 тра 2019
- Learn all about Boxelder (Acer negundo), a wonderful tree that is found along streams throughout the mid-Atlantic!
To learn more about trees and forest management, visit forestsforthebay.org, and to dive into riparian forest buffer information, check out chesapeakeforestbuffers.net.
Recorded and edited by Allyson Wells
I'm a Trout Unlimited member in Wisconsin. It's not their fault, but because other native riparian tree species have been over harvested and over utilized for many years in this area, Box Elders, despite the benefits some commenters have mentioned, over crowd our trout steam banks, drop too much tree debris into streams and lakes, and cut off too much light needed for native stream vegetation. Our stream restoration efforts here include thinning out the Box Elders and planting other native trees like Hackberries and Oaks. Hopefully this returns the stream banks to a more balanced ecosystem closer to what the given stream was like before it was altered by all the exploitation of streamside resources, with the ultimate goal of healthy wild trout in a healthy stream or lake
1:45 How bought immortality, you can cut them down and cut them down and cut them down and you can do it till the world stops spinning and you don't have to plant them ever, if you have one in your yard you have an infinite amount because they just don't die.
They are suckering! They grow new trees from existing root systems, like black locust
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ painfully short but thoroughly explicit. Thank you sir for giving this unique species the dignity it deserves. My property is rife with these. I believe the short life scenario is a bit-O-an exaggeration. I have two very old ones third younger brother and a host of sevenor eight quite large Younghans. The three brothers were here in 2001 and were quite old and large at the time. While they routinely lose and shed a lot of branches they continue to hang on and thrive. If there is an appropriate link, I'd be glad to send pictures.
The wood often has red staining that's prized by wood turners. Can also be tapped for syrup like other maples. I quite like these trees myself. Every tree has its own character, and they can be picturesque
I've had one of these growing in my back yard for at least 20 years. It was a volunteer (my neighbour has one that produces seeds.) I kept cutting it back to the ground for the first several years, but then was too busy to stay on top of it. It now towers over my deck and garage. It's soo messy. Last to leaf out, first to drop. Has now gotten so big it's lifting my deck, as it was growing at an angle from underneath. But the bees love it, as do the birds as it has convenient branches for hanging suet/seed cages. Needs a severe cut-back as my south facing deck is now mostly in shade in the summer.
The good thing about this mostly maligned tree is that it helps to prevent soil erosion especially if found next to streams.
Why do people consider them so undesirable? I think they're a beautiful tree! Perhaps they're difficult to get rid of but they're very nice looking trees imo and they produce sweet sap so you can tap them and drink the sap or make syrupt
Where I live it's a very common tree in peoples yards
It’s a crap tree. Leave them in the creeks to fall over themselves lol
Box elder is a maple (Acer) but has unique traits not typically found on most other maples like compound leaves, green twigs and leaf scars that connect on twigs.
thank you, cool video and info
👁💚🌲. Trees are nessary for life to exist on this 🌎. 🌲🌳 are so beautiful iv seen 🌴 that must have been 200- 350yrs old they give off an aura of majestic knowledge a knowing of wisdom the life secrets of the nature. The roots of🌲🌳hold 🌎 together.
Such a cool, scraggly, shady tree. They're so prolific where I am. I love how fast they coppice. Not sure if you can use that word as a verb but they do it so quickly. You cut one and in two years the growth from the stump will be taller than you!
I'm learning so much from the comments haha. We had a boxelder cut down on our property exactly 2yrs ago and it's split into like 30 parts and it's SO TALL already!! I've been so confused as to how it's gotten so massive so quickly lol but I guess it's just what it does
@@LameTurmeric it is indeed what they do! There's a number of trees that are really good at it; black locust and chestnut also come to mind. Black Locust is also suckering, they grow from the roots of bigger trees. Box elder and black locust are great as pioneer species for these reasons. Big fan of both
i owned a house with a row of boxelders on the lot/fence line on one side of my yard, big unruly rapidly growing buggers but they did provide lots and lots of privacy in their tangle of living and dead branches
I identified my first box elder after thinking it was a massively leafed poison ivy vine. The source tree had been so heavily trimmed for so long, it no longer resembled a tree. Here in Virginia, they like to plant tall growing species under power lines so a power company (not an arborist) can make money destroying the trees when they hack them to pieces, splitting the crown until the tree is a Y shape (at best), more often a lopsided mess that hangs over the street, waiting for a heavy wind storm.
Any tree whose Latin name starts with "acer" is in the maple family. Box Elders are one of those trees that must never be allowed anywhere near a house, and never ever on a village street! Over 20 years ago I told my sister and brother-in-law to get rid of the Box Elders in their yard. They didn't and when these weak, short lived trees gave way in storms they caused damage to their garage, and last year, the last one left came down and pulled down electric and phone lines for the whole street! Their neighbor on the other hand planted a White Oak. It's now a magnificent looking tree that laughs at ice storms and high winds. Now my sister wishes they had cut down the stupid Elders and planted a oak instead when their neighbor did. White Oaks do not take a hundred years to mature, in fact they can grow quickly when planted by themselves with out competition, and achieve 50ft or more in 15-20 years. Yes they produce leaves and acorns, but they are gorgeous!
Good advice near homes. Our boxelders are along the hayfield and are huge. But...yeah, they loose limbs and are gnarly buggers :) Not a tree for town perhaps.
I find them everywhere here in Okanagan BC near houses and along the streets, they're very common where I am and people literally have large ones close to their houses. Interesting, I find them to be quite beautiful, I like all maples.
Red oak are faster growing than white oak. Also, consider freeman maple which are a red and silver maple hybrid. They have the fast growing quality of Silver Maple but the less shallow roots quality of Red Maple and also less brittle. It's the ideal shade tree. Silver Maples cause problems. Red Maple is a very good tree.
But yeah, Red Maple, Freeman Maple, Red and white oak all good choices.
Silver Maple could be a decent choice but once they get very large they're dangerous.
@@markjones5561 Yeah it's weird because they're common here in people's yards I literally found like 4-5 on my short street
@@lrn_news9171 Beautiful from a distance. They are fine in a wood lot not in your yard. The same with Weeping willows, they belong along creeks in England not in your yard or heaven forbid, on a suburban street.
Idk why people consider Box elder undesirable, I think they're a beautiful tree.
They are, great shade trees too
Because during strong winds, they tend to lose limbs which may fall on cars, sheds, etc.
@@tedgordon5381 Well lots of people have silver maple trees and they're more brittle than Box Elder lol
They have very weak wood and are prone to breakage. They are okay in a ravine, but never in a yard or backyard. There’s debate how native they are. Many considered them an invasive species.
@Hanzifcation Well Silver Maples are a popular urban tree and have been extensively planted along streets, parks and even in people's yard yet they actually have softer wood than Box Elder, in fact, Box Elder is not the softest maple. It boggles me that Box Elder wood is considered undesirable and isn't used much commercially while Silver Maple is used for quite many things as an alternative to hard maple and for musical instruments when they have curl or flame patterns. Box Elder often has beautiful wood too.
It's not a bad tree, and it's not as prone to rotting when you prone it compared to silver maple. I understand that the silvers that were planted as a replacement for the american elm are now huge and causing problems, it's just strange that it's far more popular yet is softer, I guess it has a beautiful shape typically. Box Elder is quite invasive outside their range yes, in Russia for instance it's extremely invasive.
Box elder syrup is delicious 😋
These trees live forever. They constantly fall over and are able to reroot and survive. They are okay in ravines, where they are allowed to break and fall over without damaging property.
They run rampant in my town in northern Maine...t
They are here in central Maine too. They suck splitting for firewood that's for sure.
Another video to remind me that I should get a girlfriend. Also, you don't have to be that nervous in your video. I think the wood the tree makes is pretty nice and I should buy one of those Harbor Freight sawmills to make boards at my Dad's farm that's full of those trees. The syrup from the sap is nice but its not often made since its less concentrated than even basic maples like Silver Maple. The wood has a nice red coloring inside. The sad parts about the tree is that it often grows crooked, never gets very big, and likes to grow at an extreme lean often due to the wet soil it grows in. Its actually a great tree to learn how to use a chainsaw with since its abundant and you can make mistakes and learn the characteristics of trees without getting a trip to the hospital or morgue or if you make mistakes. My first tree was, and still is, a boxelder with multiple trunks. I like that tree. That reminds me that I should get some fertilizer for it.
Its a wonderful basic tree. The vanilla of trees. It makes syrup and boards and can teach you how to cut down bigger trees without taking your life in the process.
Why do they always say that Box elder has an unattractive crown or is generally undesirable looking?? Every time I see a box elder or look up pictures of them they're a very beautiful tree. I don't understand why they always say this.
2:39 Here in the east, this appearance in typical for A. negundo. It's a look most don't prefer - plus, they typically grow massive amounts of epicormic shoots, like the stalk Ryan used to show the leaf scars.
What is the species of mushroom growing on the rotting boxelder tree? I have some on my own boxelder stump 💞
Thank you. Just a bit confused by your comment at 1:36 saying it's 'atypical'. Did you mean it's 'typical'?
Thanks Tomas! It's typical for boxelders, but atypical for other maples. Red maple scars do connect, but their scars are much more subtle. Does that clarify things? Cheers!
@@forestsforthebay4784 Yep, thanks. :)
Love my Boxelder, would love to Cut a Start from my boxelder and grow more of them with the same genetics.
Can I start a tree from a cutting and if so how?
you sure can! And we have a video to help! ua-cam.com/video/aH9OV58iezM/v-deo.html
Air layering works better for me
Is the boxelder maple a good candidate for live staking?
I've heard that they do live stake quite well, but I haven't ever personally used them. I should though, because they are a truly fantastic tree for stream banks!
@@forestsforthebay4784 Thanks for the reply, I'll try some and let you know how it goes! Pretty hard to find actual info from people trying them.
Im really curious about why Boxelder's have thin bark, is there a benifit to thinner bark?
Thinner bark is sometimes an adaptation to allow more photosynthesis through the branches and trunk, and when bark is sloughed off it is sometimes partly an adaptation to reduce epiphyte (plants and fungi that grow on trunks and branches) loads. Boxelder's strategy is to grow fast and pump out seeds rapidly rather than trying to survive for a very long time (a great adaptation in disturbance-prone floodplain habitats), so thicker, more protective bark may not be as valuable as it would for other tree species.
@@forestsforthebay4784 Thanks for the info! I am also wondering why Boxelder trees attract Boxelder bugs if they have no benefit for the tree its self?
@@AlexClark-ss4ku Plants are in a constant state of being eaten. To survive they have evolved defense mechanisms, oftentimes chemical, to deter things from eating them. But plant-eating insects have been evolving tolerances to these defenses at the same time. So after millions of years a given plant species will have a relatively small number of insect species which can eat them. For the boxelder bug, maple (including boxelder) and ash trees are their only food. The boxelder tree is not intentionally attracting the insects. But boxelder bugs are only found around the only plants they can eat, which are maple and ash trees.
I'm trying to plant some of these on my property. I have a bunch of seeds gathered up. Do they need cold stratification? I'm getting conflicting information.
I'm not sure! But boxelder seeds mature in autumn, so my guess is that you could either stratify them artificially or gather them from the trees in late winter to plant in spring
Mine was a volunteer from a neighbour's tree. Every spring/ summer I have to pull out seedlings from their tree that keep popping up in my yard. They're germinating on the north side of my garage, amongst pea gravel and soil.
Deer love to eat the leaves of these maples
Ugh. We hate this tree in northern WI, it grows incredibly fast and shades out "better" trees and is a quite trashy tree in that its forever dropping sticks and dead limbs into your yard.
I love it for those reasons! Boxelder's tendency to break big limbs off makes it an excellent wildlife tree; many of the wounds will develop into cavities, which are important homes for species like wood ducks, screech owls, possums, and many others! Plus, if it is growing along a stream the woody debris is excellent for aquatic life; it is basically providing free habitat restoration by adding in stream bottom complexity and feeds many insects which then feed larger organisms like trout. I love its ability to suck carbon out of the air, turn it into wood, and then drop that wood to partially become soil carbon!! And if boxelder is the only tree large enough to reproduce in an area, and thus is shading out other more valuable species like oaks, it likely means that humans removed the more economically valuable trees and left the boxelders. So that's not really the boxelder's fault either. Just a little perspective :)
@@forestsforthebay4784 Yeah, thats cool, I get that, but compared to the oaks, birch and maple I just cant stand them in a yard. If they just grow in the woods then we leave em along. Love your channel keep it up.
I'm planting a few of these in my yard, far away from the house of course. If they do grow fast enough to drop a limb or two they will go into my fire pit.