See this tree. Yes, the green one in the middle with the sort of shredded looking bark. It is the Juniperus Ashei, also known as the Mountain Cedar. It is the bane of my existence, at least from December through February each year. Know why? Allergies, my friends, or what's known in our area as "cedar fever". Horrid, horrid pollen that the male (yes, there are male and female cedar) tree produces. These trees are everywhere in Central Texas. Of course, they are in lots of other places too, but we are lucky enough to have vast quantities of them locally. When the trees are pollinating, they sort of look rusty or orange-ish. And when the "wind comes sweeping down the plains", as it will in the wintertime in Texas, the pollen just bursts into the air, sharing all its "goodness" with us and presumably with the female trees. Sometimes, it almost looks like the tree is smoking, I kid you not.
Our area is involved in a great controversy right now. Many people would like to chop down all the cedars and get rid of them. Good luck with that, I say. There are people on both sides of the debate - do these plants use more water than (4 times as much) the other common native tree, the live oak. Are they choking out our live oaks? Are they draining our aquifers? Can we afford to have these native plants around us when we have such awful years of little rain, such as 2011? Many people are getting rid of them on their properties. Others feel like the poor cedar gets a bad reputation through no fault of its own. My husband and nephew spent part of the holidays clearing our lot of a huge amount of cedar growth. Here's a picture of a stack that representing about 1/3 of the trees cleared. Our lot is an acre and that's what was still there after building the house.
We had a company come by afterwards and use that chopper/chipper thing that you can just see behind the stack to remove all the trees. Me, I stayed inside the whole time. Just what I didn't need - breathing chopped up cedar. I do take medication for my allergy and, believe me, I'm not alone in my suffering. Well, this is just a little bit of my life in Central Texas. Now let me see if I can find my Kleenex.
Pollen allergies are nasty. Hope you get lots of calm days so it doesn't blow around too much.
ReplyDeleteI have a male Eastern Cottonwood on my property and when it makes pollen in the spring my eyes itch for weeks.
I think we have a few of those trees in our area, but not many. I'm sorry they make you suffer so much.
ReplyDeleteAllergies can be miserable! My brother and sister suffered with all sorts of tree/grass/pollen allergies when we were growing up, but somehow I never developed them. Hope removing some of the cedars will help you breathe a little easier the rest of the winter.
ReplyDeleteUgh! I hate allergies! I'm sorry you're suffering. And those trees do look a little malicious; sitting there on the hill.
ReplyDeleteI didn't realize that they were such little nuisances!! It's such a hard call to make about getting rid of them and what to do about them!
ReplyDeleteOh, Kay. I'm so sorry the cedars are causing you so much discomfort. I hope having cleared the ones on your property helps, so you can enjoy your patio! I had a terrible time with the eucalyptus trees and acacia when we lived in San Diego. I don't have much trouble here, but Rod sure does. His allergies tend to flare up during the winter, probably from all the leaves on the ground. Of course, he claims to NOT have allergies, but you would never believe that if you saw how much Kleenex we go through every month! ;)
ReplyDeleteI can't think of what this tree looks like (other than from your pictures, obviously). But that's terrible about your allergies--seems the air has been especially bad the past year with the lack of rain.
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