Hybrid Poplar - oops?

[Catalina]

I bought 3 hybrid poplars this year and they just arrived in the mail.

When I told my mom about the trees she told me they were awful and I shouldn't plant them.

She said they are invaisive and will take all the water supply from my garden. That they are OK if you have several acres of land, but it was an all around BAD idea for my small garden.

I wanted to plant them on the east side of my property to block the view of my neighbor's patio, but now I'm not sure.

She also said they grow super fast, but they are impossible to kill - they just keep sending up shoots after they are cut down.

What do you think?

 

[TillinWithMyPeeps]

Your mom might be right on this one.

I have never planted these particular trees, but, I do know that they grow very fast, and as with most plants that grow fast can easily become invasive. I have also heard that they typically have a short life span, typically grown for firewood, quick shade, or by real estate developers that want big trees fast.

 

[patandchickens]

GIve them to an enemy, or someone with acreage.

They are fine for certain purposes -- very fast-growing short-lived windbreak, drying up damp ground, or rapid production of crappy wood for fuel purposes.

They are EVIL EVIL EVIL in any other situation.

They grow incredibly fast (potentially 6 ft a year), they lose their lower branches fairly young so they will not screen your neighbor for long anyhow, they drop branches and twigs if the weather so much as sneezes, their roots can invade septic systems, buried water lines, sewers, wells, ponds and house foundation drains for 100++ feet around, and in 40 yrs or so you (or someone) will have to shell out thousands of dollars to have them cut down before they fall on something in their decrepit old age. And, when they ARE cut down, unless you cut them in June/July and have the stump ground, half an acre of persistant sprouts will shoot up all over your lawn for the next year or two.

I do *not* exaggerate. Seriously.

If you want to block a patio view, put up a fence; or shell out for a hedge of good-sized cedars or lilacs or ninebarks; or both. NOT POPLARS - they won't do the job but they'll do lots of other things. If you want to plant a tree that won't do a very good job anyhow, plant manitoba maples (box elder) or silver maple in a multi-stemmed form -- they have the same invasive root and crappy weak wood problems as poplar, but don't get as tall and are easier to cope with and to take down when necessary. Or shell out for some Amur maples (Acer ginnala) -- they grow pretty fast and make a bushy thing 15' high kind of like a small multi-trunked manitoba maple or silver maple, but roots are not invasive and wood isn't too awfully weak. (e.t.a. - or if this is a slightly dampish piece of ground, not too dry, consider a hedge of coyote willow or any similar shrub willow -- the roots aren't as invasive as big willows' are [nor as invasive as poplar roots!) and again, it'll make you a nice reasonably dense screen in a few yrs.)

Good luck,

Pat

 

[Catalina]

Ok! Not planting it!

Thanks for the info - you saved me a lot of trouble.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Don't know if they will grow in your area, but a landscape architect recommended Leyland Cypress as a relatively fast-growing screen tree for us. I planted three.

I don't have Pat's experience with Hybrid Poplar, but if they are worse that Silver Maple I don't want them anywhere near the house. My parents have silver maples (not sure what Pat meant by multistem form. These normally fork very low). They grow very large and are hard to take out, are very brittle so are dropping limbs all the time, tend to split down the middle and block driveways or fall on the roof (a well-built house from 1936, no serious damage), and seedlings come up all the time, even in the gutters if you don't keep them cleaned. When I moved to this house, one of my first improvements was to remove two small silver maples about 30 feet from the house.

I think you made a wise choice.