Gleditsia triacanthos, AKA the bloody tree…

Now, I love trees, there are so many shapes and sizes, colours, and there are several beautiful ones in the back yard planted by the previous owner, thank you Hayley … they are lovely. Except one…

I have an ongoing war with the Bloody Tree… funnily enough there are very few photos of it on my FB… unless it’s in the background of others…

I thought it was a Robinia, like the ones planted down our town’s main street… and they get a savage haircut each winter from the very good council gardeners.

SO – what I thought was a Robinia had grown HUGE, with long flailing arms and, although beautifully golden and attractive, it had big teeth… AND worst of all, it suckered like crazy…

SO – last winter I thought right, cutting it back really hard might make it focus on replacing itself and not sucker so much, as I was about to take out shares in the weed killer companies to keep the suckers under control,

I took to it with the chainsaw… HWMBO was not pleased… Nor was son faced with very large branches lying on his compost burn pile…. that’s another story- we had to get a mulching man in to chop it up.

And cost $400… but at least now the Bloody Tree is my garden path and I can stamp on it!

BUT – unlike the trees on the main street that burst back into life in spring… mine didn’t. It stood there, corpse like… with HWMBO giving me sullen – see you don’t know everything –  looks…

SO – I asked the previous owner who planted it why it wasn’t behaving as it should, and she told me it wasn’t a Robinia but a Gleditsia… uh – oh…

 Mr Google happily informed me that this tree really hated getting cut back hard and that under no circumstances… ohh heck…! I’ve killed it…

Oh the shame… like a missing front tooth the ten foot high trunk stood there… with a beautiful Golden Ash to one side… which I have to say was much happier without its  hungry neighbour, and a glorious Desert Pansy on the other… I said some really nasty words to it.

So all spring, while the Robinias in the main street looked lovely, I had a big gap in my row of trees… HWMBO was nastily gleeful.

I discussed with my nursery friend about replacing it with a Claret Ash and was trying to work out how I could get a hole dug big enough to plant a reasonable size one…  and then saw the tree had still sent suckers out all along one root… I thought you swine!!!

I went and bought two bottles of blackberry killer and attacked them and watched with great satisfaction as they died…

Then – last weekend as I passed the tree… a flash of something caught my eye… the Bloody Tree was shooting… all over it’s bloody arms… I said really unladylike words…

So, it can damn well grow if it must – but I will hinder its suckers as much as I can… even if I DO have to take out shares in the weedkiller company.

So if you arrive here and say oh how beautiful, when you see it… and I give you a sour look…. know that to me it will always me the Bloody Tree…