One of my pens has been left natural for about 25 years. There are about 16 dead trees in there and many diseased (plus pine beetle infested) pines so I’m electing to have all pines and dead trees removed. There are some healthy sweet gums in the pen. Would you have the contractor remove them??? They’re actually pretty trees, I just don’t like the round balls they drop. Has anyone had any difficulty with their horses and these balls? Thanks in advance!
How big of a pen?
Sweet gums are great shade trees and generally considered to be non-toxic. Horses generally leave the spikey balls alone. But… a few sweet gums scattered throughout 10 acres of nice grass is a different situation than a few sweet gums in a 1/4 acre dry lot. Any plant that drops that much fruit isn’t a good idea in a small space.
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@Texarkana The area is an acre. I’m not really good at identifying sweet gums, but the Natural Resources people said I had some back there. I’m going to google an easy way to ID and do a count. To me the leaves look like a maple. I don’t think it’ll be too many. The Natural Resources guy said he had one in his yard and it was taking forever to get rid of the root. Thanks!
I would leave them…
We have had sweet gums in the pastures, and even planted as ornamental trees in the yard… The balls aren’t an issue with the horses, but they truly suck in the yard if you ever try to walk in bare feet.
The balls are easy to rake up if you want (or just pulverize them with the mower!), the trees we have are fairly large - maybe over 40’ tall with an approx. 2’ trunk? They produce enough balls under their canopy to fill a trash can, so it really isn’t a lot considering the surface area of the canopy.
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If just a few for shade, I would consider leaving them. However, when the “gum balls” drop, they can be very messy and do get stuck in horses’ hooves.
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I love my Sweetgum for fall color. The leaves get piled up in the chicken run after they drop. They smell terrific. You might want to wait a season before factoring pod drop into your analysis…mine doesn’t produce them. Well, I did find two last year under a 15 year old tree. Apparently the Sweetgum declined in popularity as a landscaping tree due to the pods dropping on sidewalks and a non fruiting variety was subsequently developed. I wish mine actually produced since it’s out of the way and the pods attract many species of birds.
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I cannot stand my sweet gum trees and would remove every single one of them if I could. Particularly the one that drops those stupid balls all day long on my metal roofed barn. Gah.
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Since the tree cutter will be there, I would get rid of the gum trees at the same time, and maybe plant something else eventually.
I hate gum trees and they will spring up everywhere if you leave one. I HATE THEM.They are just too prolific and hard to kill LOL> they won’t hurt your horses but they are a pretty trashy tree.
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Exactly. Useless freaking things. They don’t even burn well. GAH.
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I don’t have any in my pastures, but do have some by my pond and one next to my arena. Even though my arena has a roof, I find the balls in the footing occasionally.
The only problem they have caused is my normally bomb-proof horse bolted with my trainer when the landscaper was mowing next to the arena and a ball shot out and hit my horse in the butt. Oops.
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I inherited a hybrid that does not produce the “balls”. It gets gorgeous fall color. But, it suckers relentlessly. I’d never plant one. Good luck eradiacating!
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I think the gum trees are the ones I had in my yard a few years ago. It was easy to remove, very soft wood (it was small, with a trunk that was only a few inches across), but the shoots from it kept coming up in the yard for years after the tree, small stump, and roots were removed. It was a pain, and the sap smelled funky when I would remove the shoots.
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Update: I was worried about being able to identify the sweet gums - no need. Besides one sycamore and one ornamental tree, they’re all sweet gums! I’m just going to have him remove the damaged/not healthy-looking sweet gums and leave the rest. I wish I had a better mixture of hardwoods. Thanks for all the help!
