My advice... the pods it drops are only temporary -- get your kids to rake them up if they really bother you, enjoy the shade it provides -- goodness knows there's never enough of that, and more importantly try to appreciate the fact that your palo verde has been growing in that spot for a long time... long before you built your house there... share the earth and move on... there's so much more important stuff to worry about.

JMO,
Di

Perhaps if you find a tree you like better, with the ability to grow some "bigness" fairly quickly, he can be persuaded that it's not a good tree for a front yard.

well, my only advice is to pray that a gust of wind uproots it. make sure you indicate which direction it needs to fall. LOL

detrick

let's be realistic and not so narrow minded...

bcmommie, i do not agree with deceiving your husband, or purposely making the tree sick. my advice to you is to research some other options for a tree that would be pleasing to both you and your husband, and try to discuss this with him. or you two might be able to come to a compromise if you discuss the pros and cons of the current tree and/or a new one. communication with your husband is the best route, i think.

maybe you should move to seattle or cleveland where you can have grass and big green trees. the desert is not full of these things. you live in arid land and the palo verde belongs here where nature intended. sometimes its easier to go with mother nature than to fight. sometimes it's just narrow minded to try to make things fit where they don't and even more so to insist that nature has made all the mistakes. choices like this - how do you slowly kill a paloverde - are slowly killing the earth.

Okay, Desert Diva, let's be square here: I don't live in the Sonoran Desert, I live in the Mojave Desert, and the only thing mother nature planted here were scrub brush, so even the dastardly palo verde is not native to this area. I already agreed to pull up the lawn (burmuda, no less, so it has taken quite a while to kill it). I have enlarged the patio, created a dry river bed, and have a 4'wide walkway through the front of my yard. I have as much hard scape as my small yard can handle. Really, don't be so narrow minded, yourself.

Well, my husband is on the first day of a three-day firefighter shift...I guess now is as good a time as any to hire the backhoe :)

"The mind opens, and in creeps wisdom."
-Lwxana Troi to Alexander Roschenko

:'(

I love desert trees, I hate the idea of killing one, but the wrong tree in the wrong place is nothing short of a bad idea. That's why we cut down the Mulberry in my yard, LOL! Hopefully once this one is gone, you'll find another that is beautiful and that you love and will care for.

Now, not wanting bees is a totally different subject....
>smile<

I abhor mulberries (short-lived, etc.) but after you get rid of the scraggly thing, consider planting a better-behaved desert tree. You do have to make sure it's frost-tolerant for the Vegas area.

I feel better know but I still hate these trees.

This post brought tears to my eyes. You are like all of the winter snowbirds who come here with absolutely no knowledge of the desert, mohave or otherwise. And to say you hated it even more when it blooms? I am speechless. Well, not quite. Agree with the suggestion that you move to Seattle or some other green place and allow the desert to grow in its natural way.

> These have to be the dirtiest trees in all the world. DIE TREES DIE!!!!

Again, I am speechless. Were they planted in the wrong place? Probably. But you are talking about one of the most beautiful trees in the desert. Oh, but its littering your precious pool! Well, then see if someone wants them, see if someone would be willing to take the beauties and plant them somewhere where they can grow naturally. That's the least you can do.

>how do you slowly kill a paloverde - are slowly killing the earth.

Yep

These aren't even on my property. They belong to the homeowners association and I'm the person who has to clean up all the mess. Why don't you talk to the homeowners association? Maybe you can and have them transplanted to your property if you like them so much.

Drive a large copper nail into the base of the trunk.

Quote ‘Driving a copper nail has physical, chemical, and
biological actions playing together. If the tree dies, it will not be easy
to know precisely what the main cause was acting. Copper as a metallic form
is not harmful to tree nutrition. It needs to oxidize, to solubilize and
then be absorbed. Absorption of copper at the bark level may not occur, while
high levels of copper ion in the soil rooting system may lead to toxicity. Many
species of trees also will respond differently to this stress related to
nails in their bases.’

Personally, when ever I have moved to a home where I wanted to alter the trees, I looked up charitable organizations. In CA they would come out and remove the trees and plant them in communities that couldn’t afford trees. I have no idea if AZ has these kind of organization but it’s worth a shot.

I just found this one in a search ‘Trees for Tucson’
http://www.tucsonaz.gov/tcb/

hope this helps

S

Next I tried "Round-Up" on the leaves. This caused the tree to drop some leaves and "sticks", but ultimately - new growth resumed.

Finally I was advised to try turpentine, and to remain undetected, Ace Hardware sells a 'no odor' version. I poured a half gallon on the ground around the base of the tree, and slowly over the course of the next few months, the tree went brown, and never came back.

Maybe the salt and the Round-Up did a little damage, and the turpentine was the knock-out punch?

Good luck to you. No one deserves to be enslaved to a tree when the "right one" is out there somewhere just waiting for it's chance to serve you better.......

p.s. no one here should judge your motives or methods - these things can be a really big deal for some couples - my mom left us for a while once because she was so upset over a severe pruning that our dad gave the mulberry tree!! It wasn't funny at the time, but we all laugh at it now...