[NatureNS] History of Black Locust, perception as invasive

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From: Bev Wigney <bkwigney@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 22 Apr 2019 09:06:40 -0300
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Hi All,

Regarding Black Locust.  Just some anecdotal bits and pieces for
anyone who wants to know how Black Locust stack up as yard trees.

My house at Round Hill has several very large old Black Locust in the
front yard.   They are on the property line, so I assume they were
planted there quite some time ago.  The house dates from around 1840
or so.  Several of the trees were cut down many years ago and were
already very large. The stumps of those trees are still in my yard as
they are like rock.  A neighbour who has a bush lot and sells timber,
sawed down a snag for me and said the wood was really hard cutting.
Something I have noticed here and at other locations is that these
trees become very tall and often lean, seeming to reach for light.
Still, they seem quite secure in spite of looking a bit precarious.
The snag in my yard had probably been standing for decades - barkless
and with the wood hard like steel.

There are a few similarly large Locusts on my neighbour's lawn, and a
couple growing down on the hillside below my place.  A house that was
abandoned (now being restored) down the road from me, also c.1840 has
a few old ones around it as well as a grove of younger ones that
probably grew up from the roots.    My neighbour (now deceased) who
lived in the house with the Black Locusts in the her yard told me
that, when she was a young girl growing up at Lake Munro in the 1930s,
there were Black Locusts on either side of the lane planted many years
before by a relative.  She also mentioned that the famiily was a bit
ticked off as the trees became so large and sent out roots growing
more trees. That's probably their main downside -- the roots extend
very far and then new trees pop up here and there.    I had to be away
from my place for awhile a couple of years ago and returned to find
many 3 to 4 foot tall trees in my perennial garden where there had
been none a year before.

The young trees have razor sharp thorns.  When I'm weeding my
perennial beds, I have to watch that I don't grab a shoot coming up
among the weeds.  They really cut.  There were Black Locust at my farm
in Ontario as well - at the very back of my land around the ruins of a
log cabin on a homestead said to date from around 1850 or so.  What
probably started off as a few Black Locust trees a century ago, had,
over time, turned into a dense grove of them that was probably about 3
acres in size.  This consisted of several old trees surrounded by
legions of young ones. The ones about 2 to 5 metres in height have
very scary thorns -- the branches are long and supple and will snag
you with the thorns.  I always joked about how we didn't have to worry
about anyone sneaking in through the back of our farm as they would be
entangled in the razor-wire.  So, that's the downside of them.  Well,
actually, the other downside is that they are rather messy trees when
they start dropping leaves in the autumn.   You can't rake them up as
the fronds disintegrate into small pieces.

On the good side, the birds love the Black Locusts in my yard.
Warblers and other birds are attracted to them as it seems that there
are always many insects and caterpillars on the leaves.  Some birds
also eat the flowers and the young leaves.  Some years, the flowers
hang in great clusters and attract so many pollinator insects that the
whole yard hums to the point that I can hear the humming from indoors.
It's quite remarkable.  Last year, there were very few flowers as we
had that unusual freeze after the flowers had almost bloomed.  The
flower buds and leaves completely dropped off -- even at the top
canopy of these very tall trees.  I wondered what might happen -- if
they would get new leaves or if they were done for the year.  They did
send out new leaves about 3 weeks later, but only a few scant flower
clusters appeared.

As the trees on my property have aged, the upper branches have become
heavily encrusted with lichen.  I had a flock of about a hundred
Bohemian Waxwings show up in my yard in early March and many of them
picked at the lichen in the treetops for about a half hour and then
the flock moved on. I think they were after the lichen, but maybe
there were some springtails or other creatures in the lichen.  I
posted a photo of this on iNaturalist:
https://inaturalist.ca/observations/22261894
The bark of the older trees reminds me a little of Shagbark Hickory --
being almost like armour plates, and deeply fissured.  I've seen birds
go inside of some of these plates of bark.  I often wonder if bats
might make use of all the gaps and fissures in the bark. Nuthatches,
Chickadees, Creeper and Woodpeckers all spend a lot of time digging
around in the bark.

It is true that the wood does give off a lot of heat, but I find the
corky bark sort of unpleasant smelling when it burns.  Also, if you
are going to cut up the wood, it's best done when it is green and
don't let it dry out or it is like sawing through a piece of iron.  As
the trees have aged, the upper branches have gotten corky and
sometimes break off in the wind.  The smaller branchlets often break
off in strong winds so that there are often a bunch of 1 to 2 foot
long bits strewn on the lawn after a storm.  These small branchlets
have sharp thorns, so they are a slight nuisance to pick up.   The
trees have a nice wide canopy -- they grow very tall before branching
out -- so they provide a huge amount of shade.    The branches can
grow to be very long and are quite flexible, allowing them to bend
wildly in strong winds.  All in all, I think they have many positives
in spite of the thorns and the rather tenacious habit of sending up
new saplings in the lawn and garden.

regards,
Bev Wigney
Round Hill

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