Monday, May 20, 2013

The Payoff For Shade

 If you are fortunate enough to live near a maple tree, you appreciate the wonderful shade they provide on hot, muggy summer days.   But, there is a trade off to enjoying those trees.  You must endure the spring ritual of the falling of the seeds or as we called them when we were kids, "helicopters".    Today is the start of "helicopter" season around here and with the windy conditions, we're having a rainstorm of seeds.   There will be an endless supply for a good two weeks and in that time they will find themselves in your gutters, planters, cracks in sidewalks, flower beds, tucked in the windshields of your cars, just about anywhere they can try and attach themselves to reproduce.  
They are very determined to germinate and their efforts do not go unnoticed.  You will soon see young saplings coming up all over the place in places where you do not want a huge maple tree growing.   So late spring is spent cleaning up the seeds and pulling out the saplings.   Ah, the rituals of spring.

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