Sweet Gum Maple Trees!

[Miss Mary]

My gosh, can they ever carpet the grass with their pods! And right where our Golden Retriever has her electric fence range too. We can't even play with her right now. They are literally no fewer than 500 pods in a small area around just 2 trees!

I remember when we bought these maple trees from the nursery. We wanted a different type of maple tree but the salesman gave us these 2, at a discount.

Yeah, what a discount!

Anyone else have this type of tree? They drop SO MANY pods, hundreds. This winter both trees have literally hundreds more still hanging, waiting until a strong wind blows them down.

I spent one hour yesterday trying to make a dent in getting this up off our lawn. I need to spend a full day out there getting all of them up. A rake works only so so, I just keep working in a pattern, hoping to see some progress!

Anyway, pretty trees and all but these pods......yikes, and I have never really come up with a great craft idea for them either! LOL

Just venting....off to pick up more.

[CajunMama]

We have those trees down here too. You can't walk barefoot in the grass in the summer if you've got one of those in your yard. Hate 'em! I grew up with some in my yard and my dad eventually cut them down and planted liveoaks.

If you have alot of gumballs you can always have your husband do this?



or for next Christmas you can make:

[Miss Mary]

OH MY GOD Kathy......you are cracking me up here! And I'm so happy to give you something to do today....he he That first pic, LOL!!!!

I have thought of wreaths, etc. Just never had the Martha Stewart type patience to get out that glue gun and have at it.

I'm almost half way now......I can actually see a dent. I can see a distinct line where I've picked up the yard. We had fierce winds the other day (40MPH+) and that's what did it, these winds brought down hundreds of them). Our poor dog, she winces if you play with her right now and it's cruel to make her run. They're everywhere! As a puppy, we'd put them in an old dirty sock of ours, tie a knot and she'd have so much fun chewing it. Of course her teeth were probably coming in now. Now she just ignores the darn things!

Thanks for the suggestions though.....

[Dionne]

I always thought those "pods" were porcupine eggs?

[Miss Mary]

LOL!!

They are indeed prickly if you're barefoot and step on one. Yikes!

[mf_dolphin]

I grew up with 20 of those damn trees in the yard. Guess who's job it was to clean up the yard... My life's ambition is to wipe every one of those trees off the face of the earth!

[weathermom]

Mary, found this on one website, could be useful...I have a terrible time with slugs eating my hostas.

[color=#8040BF]You can put sweet gum seed pods around plants to discourage slugs, this works quite well with hostas. I use them as "mulch" around trees in the easement beside our house to discourage dog walkers from allowing "Fluffy" to do his bathroom business there. The seed pods also discourage cats from using your flower beds as a litter box. If you would like an organic mulch in an area not often used, throw the seed pods in there. They last a long time, work fine and don't cost a cent. [/color]

there was also a suggestion of stringing them on fishing line and spray painting gold for garland. (you know, in your spare time!!!)

[Miss Mary]

LOL!!! Well, Marshall, I have a job for you!

20 trees though - oh my, that is far too many. These trees just drop way too many pods, IMO. Triple at least that of a pine tree that drops pine cones.

So I have half the yard picked up, there's a dividing line. I just ran out of time. I play with the dog on the other side. And now that it's snowed an inch or so, they're hidden. Oh but all you have to do is walk across the yard and you know they're under the snow.

Thanks for the suggestions weathermom - LOL. Yes in my spare time I'll make garland for next xmas!!! But I have thought these could be made into some sort of decoration.

[mf_dolphin]

I can tell you one thing, when you get hit by one of those pods coming out of a lawn mower it hurts like hell....

[vbhoutex]

I can tell you one thing, when you get hit by one of those pods coming out of a lawn mower it hurts like hell....

You got that right!!!! I HATE THOSE TREES!!! The only good one is one that is cut down!!!!

[Dionne]

Porcupine Egg Pie

(6) cups heavy cream

(2 1/2) lbs fresh gulf shrimp

(2) Porcupine eggs....boiled in curry with red pepper

(4) tablespoons sweet cream butter

Olive Oil as required.....with a touch of Popeye Spinach

St Kitts Sea Salt to taste

(2) ounces of Cognac

A big chunk of grated Asiago cheese

Cook all ingredients in a large sauce pan....let sit and serve with a nice 1968 Napa Valley Beaujolais at room temperature.

Sleep well.

[Miss Mary]

Update - you can barely see my lawn save for the cover of pods.

We had Ike roar thru last Sept. Then more wind since then, then last week's mini-windstorm (we now need a roofing company to replace blown off shingles, only about 15 but they'll probably suggest a new roof since ours is 20 years old now).

I keep waiting for more wx events before we do something about these pods (hubby joked we could take the trees down, because if you look at them right now, there are probably 500 more pods poised to come down!).

Going to pay my next door neighbor $20 to rake them up and put them in my garbage can. They cover a small area, but it's the area our dog walks. Her poor paws! The area is about 20' by 10'.

Do you all think $20 is a fare price?

I just want to save my back, since it's not pain free anymore.....

[JenBayles]

It's worth it! Our neighbors had a sweet gum and we always used those things for ammo.

[Miss Mary]

Jen - we keep having more and more mini-windstorms so I'm waiting. But I will ask my next door neighbor's son if he wants to make $. I think I'll make it $25. We have a lot of these things on the ground. It looks like a carpet by now. If we had a mulcher, they could be mulched up probably.....LOL!

[Miss Mary]

Update.....

Sweet Gum Maple Tree pods? GONE!

Until the next strong wind storm......whew, glad they're off the ground now. What a nuisance! Wished I had known that these trees would drop hundreds of pods in their mature years. Sheesh!

And I saved myself $25, didn't hire my neighbor's son. Just thought, it's warm today (70s!) and why not do this job myself. Hubby even helped.

[mf_dolphin]

Good job! Need to borrow my chain saw before next year?

[Miss Mary]

LOL! You know, hubby did say a while back, we could remove these trees. But they are huge! And provide lots of shade.....I'd hate to hack down a living thing......still, they are not the trees we wanted. We wanted regular maples and got tricked into these maples, that drop all these pods!

Anywho, I'm back to picking up about 20 a day. I just shouldn't have let them accumulate like I did!

Now we can play fetch with the dog again....you see all that snow we kept having covered them up, but now it's spring. No more snow!