What to Do About the Cottonwood

Last summer the cottonwood had slime flux. There has always been a knobby wound on the trunk where parasitic mistletoe got in (I wrote about it here) but the tree was so green and leafy, providing wonderful shade on the house. The dining room sparkled in dappled shadows in the mornings.

The cottonwood is huge and shades the house well. But it dominates
 so close, and hides the house with most of its canopy well above the roof.

This summer there was evidence of wetwood oozing. Common, usually found in the soil, slime flux affects cottonwoods often, either through branch pruning or limb injury, or from the roots if they are cut. The bacteria is in the soil and the tree takes it up into the bole. 

Slime flux got bad this summer

When we moved in we cut off low branches to clear the driveway and I did a lot of root chopping and hacking as I added to the planting area under the dining room windows this year. I had to cut out a lot of cottonwood roots to get new plants settled in.

So my limb pruning and root chopping may have created this problem. Maybe not, cottonwoods are prone to slime flux.

There is no cure or treatment. Aren't those the most discouraging words? For trees . . . or humans? Usually trees survive slime flux and carry on, sealing off the area. But it can weaken the tree.

This summer half of the massive tree looked awful and stressed.

It looked awful all summer and half its leaves dropped very early

My tree guy (some people have cleaning ladies or yard help, I have a tree guy) says take it down. It's a poor choice, of course, for its messiness and roaming roots and disease susceptibility. It's far too big next to the house, completely out of scale to our low slung home. And with the lower branches limbed up we don't have any visual privacy in front of those big windows. The canopy is all up above the roof.

You know what would be more suitable in size and scale and attractiveness? You know what would screen the windows better and be nicer to look at? Quercus buckleyi -- Texas red oak.

Oaks do surprisingly well in northern New Mexico, and this type of Shumard oak is superior in its drought tolerance and ability to take dry air. And it's gorgeous.

This is just an elegant, beautiful tree in so many ways

Still a very big tree in maturity, a Texas red oak won't so massively dominate the sky above the house the way the too-tall cottonwood does. It's a more elegant shape and fall color is great. 

My tree guy says plant one now under the cottonwood, and let it grow on for three years. Then we can take down the cottonwood and the established oak will already be there. He says he does it this way all the time. 

I'm not sure. Taking down a huge living tree when there is so little shade in our environment seems .  . drastic. But it's not doing well, it will come down sooner rather than later anyway, and it's just too big. 

And really, what I want is a Texas red oak there.