The Tree of Hell

Invasive species are difficult to eliminate once you plant them.  I admit I was eco-punked once:  I went to a trusted nursery and asked for good ground cover, and after I planted these shrubs where I was living at the time.  Later, I found out that I planted . . . an invasive species from New Zealand.  I was mortified, and furious at the nursery (I haven’t returned since), but had already planted them, and well, it’s just a small section.  Many of these invasive species took root when state transportation agencies planted them along highways because they required little watering.  There’s one monster, however, that vexes us year-round:  The Tree of Heaven, or Ailanthus altissima.

This plant is a nightmare.  It thrives without care, without light, and without water.  It loves property that is not maintained and gardens that are untended.  You can’t buy the tree in any gardens—and you don’t have to because one tree can distribute one million seeds in a year!  Apparently the tree first showed up in the USA back in the late eighteenth century, and was commonly available at nurseries over the following decades.  It was even the subject of a book, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, which World War II soldiers read voraciously and then became an Elia Kazan-directed film.  Some say the Chinese brought these trees when they worked on the railroads, but placing blame is pointless:  if you have these on your property, you’ve got my sympathies.

At the very least, The Tree of Hell is annoying—it will grow anywhere in your backyard, under your home, on top of your home, and in any cracks the cement.  We have a few in our yard, which I need to prune back so that my vegetable garden gets enough sun.  Once I almost killed a fledgling Myers lemon tree in our yard as I a branch that I had sawed off whacked the plants that I actually wanted there!  This tree is also a scourge:  it crowds out native plants because it also reproduces through clustering, has an offensive smell, and you can’t even use the wood—it’s weak and warps easily.  When guests comment on the lush summer vegetation in our neighborhood, I point out these trees of hell, and I admonish them to not be fooled.

So what to do?  There isn’t much you can do.  Be good at pulling it out of the ground:  the earlier the better, and you have to be vigilant.  I’m not about to use pesticides; a fungal herbicide is still in development and seems creepy to me, and if you try to cut mature trees down, you just produce scores of sprouts, creating more work.

So if you want a 365 a day bicep workout, move to a property that has these growing all over the property.  I guarantee you'll get a great daily workout!