OBTW/Kookaburra and the gum tree

"Kookaburra sits on the old gum tree ... laugh, Kookaburra, laugh ..."

On a lovely spring day as I raked under the tree in my backyard, I thought of that song from the long-ago days at Girl Scout camp, where I first heard it. Now I know why that bird was laughing. He's not the one who has to clean up the mess this tree makes.

Liquidambar styraciflua. Latin for " @*#%)*#(*&^* I stepped on another one!" Oh, I see you have one, too. Yes, the sweet gum tree.

To be perfectly honest, it's a lovely, symmetrical tree, with star-shaped leaves that turn a beautiful golden yellow in the fall. It's hard to beat for shade. It has good resistance to storm damage and insect pests and grows well even in adverse conditions. But like a beautiful woman, the gum tree, though delightful to behold, is very high-maintenance.

Those spiky little balls. What a royal pain in the .... neck. Even when they're still green, stepping on one of them can bring tears to your eyes.

I searched the Internet and found there are a couple of treatments available to prevent the development of the fruit, but they can be expensive, and the window for their effective application is very narrow. One of the treatments must be sprayed, leaving open the possibility that other trees or plants could be inadvertently damaged. Inhaling the spray isn't healthy for you or your pets, either. The one sure cure is to cut the tree down, and that's a choice that many homeowners make, but I'm not prepared to do that.

Deciding to live with the gum balls just might open up a couple of possibilities to use them for profit.

First of all, they can be used for mulch, especially in your vegetable garden. It isn't very attractive mulch, I'll grant you that, but rabbits, cats, and other such sensitive critters intent on ruining your garden are reluctant to step into it because it hurts their feet. If you want to keep varmints out of your vegetables or your verbena, this could be the answer. Maybe we could make the mulch more attractive if we sprayed it silver. Or gold. How about brown?

No?

Okay, let's try the next possibility. The seeds of the sweetgum fruit contain significant amounts of shikimic acid, a key ingredient in oseltamivir, known commercially as Tamiflu. With the threat of a flu pandemic hanging over our heads, this could be a real moneymaker, because there are an estimated 82,000 seeds in a bushel of sweetgum balls. But - in order to extract the acid component, the gumballs must be harvested when still green and before the seeds have been dispersed. Obviously, time is of the essence, and you'll have to climb up in the tree to harvest the pods.

Not your cup of tea?

Not mine, either. I'm afraid of heights, and our sweetgum tree is already well in the range of 30 or 40 feet. Our tree is puny next to the champion tree in North Carolina, however. It's 136 feet tall and still growing.

Here's another thought: Sell them on eBay. Oh, you think not? Think again. A company called Easterly Auction sells 400 sweetgum balls for $7.50 plus $5.50 for shipping and handling. Easterly guarantees their sweetgum balls have never touched the ground and are therefore free of twigs and leaf debris. Crafters love them.

Speaking of crafters, you can make money by doing what they do. Make and sell Christmas tree wreaths and ornaments. Better yet, spray them with chemicals and package them as firestarters. Why pay big prices for those fancy bags of pine cones when you can make your own and sell the rest to your neighbors? You won't need a credit card or a Christmas Club account to pay for your gifts.

Maybe not.

By the time you pick and choose, sort and spray, dip and dye, and bag and tag a gazillion gumballs from one tree, you won't have the energy to go shopping.

There is another possibility.

I've heard there is a woman who lives in Florida who loves sweet gum balls. She thinks they're beautiful. She says she gathered shopping bags full of them on a visit to Georgia and would like to have more. I don't know what she wants them for, but if you find out who she is, let me know, please. I'll be filling cardboard boxes this afternoon and I'll be happy to send them to her. All she'll ever need. I'll even pay the postage.

One last alternative ... if you've been unhappy because of the recent hard freeze and abnormally cold weather, take heart if you are the custodian of a sweet gum. While you're shivering in your snowshoes, the sweet gum isn't any happier than you are and may very possibly produce a lot less fruit in the coming season. As always, Mother Nature has a way of evening things out.