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I've just about finished picking up the sweetgum balls in my back yard for this year and have decided this is the last time for doing it by hand. I know that there are nut gatherers that you just roll over the yard that will pick them up. I was just wondering if anyone had one of these and if so, how they liked it for picking up sweetgum balls.
Used to when we lived in South Carolina, hated them. I used to blow everything, leaves and these balls, into piles with a leaf blower that reversed and had a bagger on it then suck them up and shred in the process. Then I would take the lawn mover and mow them. I had a lawn service come in the fall to aerate and cleanup and then again in the spring for fertilizing. This usually got them all, but they were awful if you accidentally stepped on one in your bare feet. Never picked them up by hand, just too many of them.
I have one of these menaces behind my back wall so not on my property or even in my subdivision. It would have been gone long ago if I had my way.
I don't get too many of the balls in my yard, although my neighbor did. Her dog ate one and wound up in doggie ER for emergency surgery. I'll tell her to check out this thread as she's not on C-D too often. Very helpful information here!
What I do get is the fuzz. Oh, do I get the fuzz. It was inches deep all over my backyard last year after a strong north wind at just the wrong time of year. I used my mulching leaf vacuum to suck it all up - worked like a charm. The mulcher actually "felted" the fuzz so that when I emptied the bag, it just came out in sheets, just like felt. This year I'm armed and ready!
They really are a hazard . . . so sorry that happened to you. I've rolled my ankle on the dastardly things. My HOA has banned them for resident planting but my city has planted them everywhere in parks, parkways, road dividers - you name it. They have their virtues. But not in my backyard or anywhere close, in a perfect world.
I love sweetgum trees.
There are very few trees in my zone 9 yard that gives as reliable color.
I have a naturalistic yard so I don't rake or pick up anything. I don't know what it means for a tree to be messy. My neighbor is 94 and he thinks I'm the best neighbor by raking up his leaves every fall. Truth is the leaf litter nourishes my soil and insulates plant roots against our random weather.
I wish my area had more sweetgum trees but I know I'm in the minority with the wild look and most neighbors are not as nice as mine and would want the neighborhood to look uniformly tidy. But the leaf litter is home to some butterflies and beneficial insects that are dwindling in population. I need these native insects to pollinate my fruit trees so keep it nice and comfy for them.
As much as the sweetgum balls are a pain in the posterior, they are not even in the same zip code as the two huge oak trees in my yard in Florida.
With the sweetgum balls it is one and done but with the oaks it was one thing after another. First it was the yellow pollen that would cover everything. Next were the piles of oak blossoms coming down then acorns everywhere; I can remember going out with a broom and sweeping piles of them off of the driveway and as I was walking back to the house getting hit by more of them on the way down. And the leaves that cover the yard like a blanket; small and tough. Couldn't chop them up with a lawnmower like the leaves up here. Only thing to do is rake them up or bag with a mower; day after day, trashcan after trashcan full.
Remembering those days; suddenly the sweetgum balls don't seem that bad.
We have one of those nut gatherers/sweet gum picker uppers. Honestly...I think they're kind of a pain in the you know what. Yes, they DO gather up the nuts, etc. But they don't pick up as many as you'd like them to, and then you have to empty the wire ball thing rather frequently.
We have a sweetgum tree in our front yard, and it drops a ton of those things. I find the easiest way to deal with them is to rake them up, and then use something like these to pick them up: https://www.zoro.com/gardenised-deco...20non%20zombie
We have one too, 80 feet tall. It's that season again... I pick them up because I don't want my dogs to have to step on them. I also clear them from the gravel driveway. It's almost time for them to stop dropping, it's slowed way down, so I've already started. I'm lazy, I just use them for compost around shrubs.
There's one of those things at the street corner of my apartment complex. I'm thankful for the oak in my yard, I'd rather deal with acorns, even though the oak drops parts of limbs, sticks, and such. Plus I used to be afraid of sweetgums, when I was a kid, and would try my best not to walk under one.
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I pick them up because I don't want my dogs to have to step on them. I also clear them from the gravel driveway. It's almost time for them to stop dropping, it's slowed way down, so I've already started. I'm lazy, I just use them for compost around shrubs.
